Chapter 61: What's love got to do with it? – Part 2 (The Proposition)
"Ms. Thalia, you have a visitor."
She heard Raju kakka's voice at her door and raised her head from the strangely comforting deepness of her pillows.
"A visitor?"
Raju kakka was holding the door ajar and she could see him nodding through the tiny space. "She didn't give her name but asked me to give you this note." He lifted up the note in his hands.
"Would you give me a minute?" She asked and he closed the door behind him.
She sat up in bed and noticed that she was in her slip. When had she changed? She walked over to her closet to get her full-length wrapper that went with the slip and put it on and tied the belt tightly before opening the door and walking out to greet Raju kakka.
He passed her the note.
"God, what time is it?" She asked as she opened the note.
"It's 4 in the afternoon."
Her head jerked up. "Four in the afternoon? My God! Why didn't you wake me up before, Raju kakka?"
"Shashank asked me to let you sleep before he left."
She swallowed hard as an ill feeling passed through her stomach.
"Shashank was here last night?" She asked in a small voice.
"Yes. You must not remember. He was here when I brought you back from the party. But you were sleeping by then. So, he carried you up here."
"I see…" she said after a moment. The ill-feeling had now climbed to her chest.
"When did he leave?"
"Well, when I woke up at four this morning, he was waiting for me in the living room. He asked me to let you sleep until you woke up on your own."
There was something that her mind was trying to force into her consciousness that she forcefully brushed away as she looked down at the note.
"Thalia,
I am here to make you an offer that you can't refuse.
Gauri"
As cryptic as the message was, she couldn't help but laugh at it. As vicious as Gauri was with her words, she did have style. And the chick has clearly watched too much Godfather. Well, that or Marlon Brando. Either way, this should prove to be interesting.
She looked up at Raju kakka with a smile.
"Would you show her to the tea room in the west wing? I will be right there."
He nodded and walked off.
If the bitch was going to come here to make her an offer that she couldn't refuse, very well, they were going meet in a place designated by her.
She kept Gauri waiting for another fifteen minutes before she went to meet her in the tea room.
"Well, this is certainly a surprise." She said as she walked in, not having bothered to change out of the satin wrapper that she had on.
"Is it really? I would have thought that you would be prepared for such a visit." Gauri replied without missing a beat. She was seated on the white Victorian style chaise lounge, the largest piece of furniture in the room, and had her legs crossed at her knees. Thalia smiled internally at this show of power as she herself walked over one of the windows to lean against its ledge rather than sit. It was rude in the extreme, but that was nothing new in her dealings with Gauri.
"You caught me unawares, I assure you. So, what is this offer that I won't be able to refuse?"
"Ah, great. No need for pleasantries then. I will get right to the point. It appears that my aim now is the same as yours." Gauri said before she looked her right in the eye to continue.
"I want you to try to seduce my husband."
Thalia cocked her eyebrows in surprise as Gauri kept on.
"None of that stupid crap that you've been trying so far that he has shown no interest in. If you are going to do this, let's see that you do it right. And I have to say, for a woman of your experience – and I am sure you have at least some experience – your techniques leave much to be desired. Shiv is not any ol' Joe Schmo who is going to fall for the standard I am beautiful and experienced, don't you want my body routine. It's going to require a little more ingenuity. And for that, you will need me."
Okay, the chick was a bit more complicated that she gave her credit for. Shiv was at least right in that aspect. So, Thalia was careful as she raised herself off of the window ledge and walked across the room.
"Let me get this straight. You want me to get your husband in bed with me. Not only that, but you are going to tell me how to do it." She paused in her walk and turned to look back at Gauri. "Do I have that right?"
"More or less." She tilted her head in the imitation of a more-or-less affirmation.
"And how are you going to teach me – the evidently experienced one, from your own words – techniques when I assume that your sexual experience is limited to, at best, an n of 1?"
"Said n of 1 is precisely the target that you are going after. So, I think between the two of us, I would be the resident authority on the subject, wouldn't you say?"
"Well, there is nothing faulty with your deductive reasoning, that's for sure." Thalia commented, if only to point out the obvious. "So, if I were to be interested in this plan of yours – and let me pause to say that it is looking highly unlikely – what would be the technique that you would recommend?"
"I am glad you asked." Gauri said now she got up from her seat to walk to the other end of the room where a window opened to a courtyard that was filled with Raju kakka's pride and joy – a great, big, colorfully ostentatious garden of the most exotic blooms that he could get Thalia to buy for him. Watching his excitement when she got him some hard-to-pronounce and never-heard-of flower that he tracked down at any of the four horticulture magazines that she got him subscriptions to and helping him plant them were really the only joy in her life whenever she came back to Delhi.
Thalia watched as Gauri stood there for several minutes taking in the glorious sight that greeted her, unable to recollect what she was going to say, at least for a few moments.
Eventually though, while still staring intently down at the garden, Gauri lifted what Thalia had ealier thought was just a regular water bottle and said,
"You are going to drink this and go to him. It will be an offer that he can't refuse."
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Originally posted by: sridevi27
girl, I though you lived in India! Isn't it like 230 in the morning there??
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