Twist Of Fate Chapter8 Pg 118 27/07 NEW! - Page 79

A woman looks most beautiful when she struggles to hold her hair when the breeze blows them all over her face.

- Avinash Wandre

They say, in the end, it's not the changes that would break your heart; it's that tug of familiarity.* Khushi felt tired. Exhausted by trying to hold things together, that couldn't be held. Tired of trying to control things that could never, be controlled. She was tired of denying herself what she wanted for the fear of breaking things that she could never fix. She alas, didn't know that they would break, no matter what she did.

Much later, at about eleven in the night, when she was walking through the garden on the backside of the apartment, Khushi found herself face to face with the one man she knew who had the innate ability to comfort her frazzled nerves.

And the second she looked into those eyes she was revisited with every moment that they had ever spent together. Those flashes of the past, tortured her, their intensity increasing with every passing day. It was like this train, which never ceased to stop, only paused briefly some times, to be triggered off with magnificent strength moments later. The air around them smelled of dried roses, and cinnamon. The scent of the damp earth, the raindrops still lingering on to the peepal leaves still hung on to the air. There was a burning in her, she felt on fire, combustible, acknowledging each step he took towards her. She felt her heart stop, no, not stop, but slow down, taking in the sight, absorbing in the feeling, the familiar shivers it had been denied for so long. And after a long time, she had that very familiar feeling seep through her, the millisecond, during which Arnav's lips brushed over hers. She felt the world, the whole of it, moving all around her, inside her, overwhelming her senses, making her feel as if she was floating. And the only thing that kept her from drifting away were his eyes, that were looking at her with a tangible tenderness, as his lips moved over hers, in a slow, deliberate pace, cherishing every touch, every caress, as her own hands raked through his hair. An invisible force connected them, holding them close, even as the rest of the world swirled and fell away, completely.

Much later, when they broke away from the kiss, Khushi didn't let go of his shoulders. She still held on to them, scared that her knees would betray her. And then he asked her that question he had asked her many, many times before. The question which lay bare the evidence of his concern.

"Theek ho tum?"

Khushi nodded, meekly, not trusting herself to speak. They stood in silence, not knowing what to say to each other, letting the faint buzz of the cicadas fill up their ears. Much later when Arnav told her that they should go to sleep, Khushi still rattled by the kiss, with the blood still pounding in her ears, mutely shook her head and went towards her room. But then hours later a highly peculiar thing happened. Khushi simply got off her bed, and very discreetly entered the room adjacent to hers. Letting her ears get used to the drugging sound of his shallow breathing, she quietly sat beside him, her hand caressing his hair. And amidst her trance like endeavour, she slid down next to him, and letting her hands slide down along his waist, resting her face over his back, she promptly fell asleep beside Arnav.

All these years when she had slept alone, she had felt nothing but a wrenching loneliness. It had dimmed whenever Aashna used to slip in next to her. But that was different; the solitude remained, cold and devoid of his scent, his touch that she had got so habituated to in the span of a solitary night, the manifestations of which were still crystal clear in her dreams.

---

It was a few nights after Arnav's return back home after escaping his captors narrowly. The mansion had been reduced to an eerie skeleton frame after Shyam's exit from the house. The family members lay confined to their respective rooms, battling the shock of the truths thrown their way about the beloved son-in-law of the house and the return of the formidable son who was still recuperating from slight injuries. A few people from the neighbourhood were slated to come over for dinner that particular night. Khushi had just entered the bedroom, after a rushed shower, her mind locked away in the happenings of the past few days. She should have been worrying about Anjali, distressing over the situation of the family being swarmed by unhappiness. But all the loomed in her mind was the gestures of this seemingly changed Arnav. The compassionate smiles, gentle hands seemed to be all that she thought about. And every now and then when his arms would come around her, she felt utmost relief. When her husband had first entered their bedroom, he was partaking of the visual of a snug burgundy blouse delineating exquisitely the voluptuous curve of her breasts. The pallu of the lemon chiffon saree had somehow managed to slip off her shoulder, enticing his eyes to frolic all over the dipping neckline, the slender column of her throat and then painstakingly rest on some intangible point of the sheeny skin before he attained control of his speech. "They are here. Are'are you ready?" He could literally see a crimson lustre rise up her face, as she gasped clearly startled. He watched leaning against the closed doors, with a near dazed scrutiny as her hands, precarious and clinkering with the maroon glass bangles scrunched up the end of the hem of the pallu and threw it over her shoulder. In a tandem, his eyes followed her fingers as she tried to latch a petite rhinestone brooch in an attempt to fix the saree to the blouse. "Should I help?" Clearly she was expected to answer him, but his unwavering gaze and the light footfall she heard stopping right behind her stole all her words. Ever since his return, he hadn't hesitated to touch her, to take her in his arms, recurrently. It would have been unnerving, but every brush of the callous fingertips just flooded her senses with reprieve, helping her to instrument the fact that he was really back, safe and next to her. It however wasn't strong enough to overpower the staccato rhythm of her heart. She would be left dazed, warm every time he would smile at her, talk to her in tones that was bereft of the usual taunting undercurrents. Instead they would be laced with a benign caress, something she hadn't yet come to terms with.

That night when she turned away from the mirror towards him, he felt her hips brush against his and he observed with artless enthusiasm how beguiling it was to watch her fingers fist up, crumpling handfuls of the chiffon. His palm of its own accord reached out to one fisted hand, and he revelled in the enticing softness. It was so mellow, the abstruse patterns he was etching somewhere on the underside of her wrist, in-between the tinkering bangles, she felt herself unwinding, lulled into a hypnagogic state. Erstwhile, Arnav had gripped those wrists, none to mildly at that, leaving the bony tendons bruised almost always. That moment, he seemed to be recalling all those times and essaying to somehow obliterate those memories. And he was immaculately efficacious at that, because all Khushi would recall about her hands after that night, would be the image of his mouth sweeping down to her arms, just below the sleeves of her blouse and showering evanescent kisses all along her skin, lingering briefly at her elbows. When he raised his face he was greeted by an excruciatingly alluring sight, her eyes, shut and her neck, arched backward. He had stepped in closer, and there was nothing between them other than a layer of wispy chiffon and the khaki of his trousers. From the periphery of her eyes, she saw his lips nearing her and discerned the symphonic thudding of her blood against her ears. But then he halted midway, and posed a sentence befuddling her. "I think your lipstick is ruined a little. It's smeared near the corner." Why did it sound to her, like he was essentially asking for her acquiescence, very subtly so. As she raised her fingers to her lips, a few taps on the door resounded through the room, only this time, no distraction could let Arnav remove his gaze from his wife.

"Tell the guests we might be a little late. Khushi's not feeling too well." The gruff words were delivered without hesitation as he blatantly lied to the servant on the other side of the door. And almost immediately, Khushi sensed his stubble slide against her jaw, as his lips pressed against her ear. She felt his fingers slither down to the curve of her waist, and felt the cold touch of the buttons of his shirt against her bare skin. The sensation of being moulded against the sculpted narrow line of his thighs was precariously overwhelming. Raucous music hummed through her veins, just comprehending the situation and the circumstances of his proximity. He had not yet reached her lips, they seemed to busy somewhere down the base of her throat. Yet within seconds she felt his mouth upon her. She shivered when he scarcely grazed the curve of her breasts, and her lips parted. A misty film slipped between them, playing along her tongue. He could taste the sweetness of ripe plums and she, strong caffeine. Arnav perceived her deliquescing into his arms, as he held her tighter. Somewhere at the back of his mind he wondered as to why he wasted so many days using his mouth to just taunt her ' this seemed like such an amative alternative. Khushi heard him murmur more to himself than her in-between the kisses, words like beautiful and some endearments that made her want to run her fingers through his hair. And within a minute or two, when Arnav let the saree pile up haplessly over their feet, unhooking the blouse with veiled precision, she did just that. And he seemed to love her touch, because she saw him smiling against her face whispering in the sweetest of voices. "I'm sorry I don't say this enough, but I do love you. So much." The whole night that followed after, a suffocating heat pressed down all around them. They never made it to dinner that night. It enthralled Khushi to acknowledge the muscles of his stomach tightening involuntarily as her hands skimmed over the bronze skin. He would, for lonely nights remember an embroidered flower, a simple rose, sewn between the cups of her brassiere. He would remember small details during dusky evening spent alone in their room like the tiny mole on her back, half covered by a lacy strap. She would remember for a long, long time how his teeth traced her skin, the ragged velvet of the way her name sounded on his lips and the pleasure she felt when he groaned against her wet hair. It was all so surreal, so fragile, she had wondered then, if it would last, at all?

---

As a few tentative beams of the morning sun filtered through the curtains into the room, her eyes fluttered open. She knew even without looking at the clock, she was late. Yet she didn't feel like getting up from the soft sheets, the feeling of her face pressed against Arnav's back was too tempting and these short hours she had been next to him, she had experienced a bizarre, arbitrary sense of complete bliss. All she wanted at that moment looking at the sunlight dappling his face, his shoulders was to escape from the vain tedium of human expression, from all those transcendent phrases and take refuge somewhere, anywhere in his immediate vicinity with Aashna. Dropping a breezy kiss on his shoulder, she got off the bed to mingle yet again with normalcy.

"Good morning!" Khushi didn't think she would ever get used to the raspy intones of his voice. Today however, it was lower and even more gravelly than usual. Arnav hadn't slept for a minute last night. He hadn't moved a limb, or turned to face her through all the last six hours. His neck hurt, but he was beyond caring then. But he let his fingers touch her hand that had rested on his chest the entire night. Reminiscing the last time when they had slept together on the same bed, he had simply traced the painted red nails, the purple glass bangles and unconsciously, with the lightest touch of his fingertips written his name over her hand. He had smiled a foolish smile, pondering upon his silly antics. But the night had gotten over too soon. The morning however seemed to be testing his patience with imageries, that wouldn't leave his mind ' not anytime soon. He saw his wife bent slightly to the level of a small table fan, her hands flapping through the wet tresses of her hair. There were small drops of water he felt like kissing away, all over the curve of her back, glistening under the sunlight. When she turned around, he saw a few more droplets hanging onto the soot-black eyelashes. He heard himself sighing when the damp hair she was struggling to hold, blew all over face from the spurts of wind from the fan behind her. Sometime later, he witnessed a laughing NK fiddling with his camera capturing his daughter sitting on Khushi's lap and he acknowledged the unfamiliar tug at his heartstrings to rush to that site and slide right next to his wife, on the empty space of white wicker bench. However, much to the delight of his frustrated demeanour Khushi threw in his way a wonderful opportunity that evening.

"It's Aashna's Parent Teacher's Meeting tomorrow. Would you like to come?"

---

"Funny how everything can change in an instant. From death to life. From empty to full. From darkness to light.

Or maybe I just wasn't looking. I hadn't known that light could be a feeling and sound could be a colour and a kiss could be both a question and an answer. And that heaven could be the ocean or a person or this moment or something else entirely."

? Megan Miranda, Fracture

---

*Jennifer E. Smith, The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

Song : All I Want - Kodaline