Bootie and the Beast

by Falguni Kothari

  She weighed her choices: prickly numbers man or a happy-go-lucky lab rat? A smart woman, a practical person would choose Neil.

  Diya scooted forward on the bike and wrapped her arms around Neil, pressing her cheek into his back, testing, waiting, wishing desperately for a shiver to course through her veins. For lightning to flash through her heart. For something … anything magical to occur. She wasn’t surprised when she remained unmoved, even with the chilly wind whipping past them.

  The floodlights came on over the garage as Neil parked the motorcycle in front of the storybook house. He gave her a moment to disentangle herself from him before he hopped off. He removed his helmet and then removed hers because, suddenly, her fingers were frozen solid. She was a mannequin of uncertainty.

  She stared at him as he carefully slung the helmets across the curvy T-bar of the Harley.

  He is undeniably handsome, she thought, carefully appraising him. A dorky Indian sex god with a perfect stubble dotting his taut cheeks and jawline. His hair was military short, so the helmet hadn’t flattened it up against his skull. He had a body frame that told her he was a health nut like her; she was pretty sure he had an eight-pack. She’d felt the rolls of his pecs flex as she’d hugged him on the ride. His nose was aristocratic, and any children they had would have a fifty percent chance of not being disappointed in their noses. Oh, Neil and she would make gorgeous babies.

  Neil shot her a quizzical smile when she continued to sit on the bike and paint imaginary portraits of their children.

  “Kiss me,” Diya said abruptly.

  Even his reaction to her insane demand was perfect. He wasn’t shocked. He didn’t recoil. He didn’t judge her. Didn’t look at her funnily or lewdly or laugh at her. And thank heavens he didn’t make any jokes. He simply looked at her for a long, intermittent moment, during which her heart tried to explode out of her chest, and made his decision with a quick nod.

  Neil bent his head and took her mouth, and her first thought was, It is such a shame I can’t shiver with him.

  Her lips opened under his, over his, as they played with each other. Tongues, licks, nips. His arms came around her, and she clutched his head in her hands, a little forcefully, a lot desperately.

  Come on. Just once. Please let me feel something for someone else, just once.

  When it ended, they both froze as they were—his hands on her shoulders, hers clutching his head.

  “It was … bad, wasn’t it?” Neil whispered as if he couldn’t quite believe it. “It felt like I was kissing my sister.”

  “I sincerely hope that conclusion did not come from personal experience.” Diya tugged a tuft of his hair, and he winced, more from her taunt than her hair-pulling.

  “I’m into empirical knowledge, yes, but not in those kinds of data.”

  “Well, our experiment failed spectacularly. Too bad we dashed our folks’ hopes.” Diya slid off the motorcycle. Really, really too bad and too sad that he wasn’t her prince.

  “I can’t speak for them, but I am disappointed. I like you, Diya. I didn’t expect to,” he said, his face open and gentle.

  Then, Neil Upadhyay got back on his Harley and kick-started it. Only it didn’t start. He kicked it a second time, and it roared to life. For another long moment, they both stared at the helmet in his hands.

  He looked up, his dark eyes full of uncertainty. “Maybe we should try again? Sometimes, repeating an experiment can bring you a different result.”

  A thick layer of regret wrapped around her heart. There was no point in beating a dead horse. She had her result. Zero shivers. Diya shook her head.

  “Will you call me if you change your mind?” he asked softly.

  She nodded and watched another prince among men ride out of her life.

  With a heavy sigh, she started her trek to the Beast’s lair. How many gods were there in the world? How many had she appealed to over the years? And not a single one thought she deserved a break.

  Long ago, Vallima had told her that no one had everything in life, and one should appreciate what they had and not lament over what they didn’t.

  Why was it so hard to accept rejection and failure? Why did she want it all?

  What had Neil said? That sometimes, repeating experiments gave one different results? Did that mean—

  Diya stopped short halfway up the brick steps. Her blood turned to ice when she noticed the wide open door and the Beast looming in the shadows on the stoop. He had a glass of whiskey in his hand.

  Crap! What had he seen? What did he hear?

  What new hell was he going to put her through tonight?

  * * *

  “Goodness me, Krish. You look like one of those gargoyles one finds on top of castles in Transylvania,” Diya said, sauntering past Krish with a patently fake smile plastered on her face.

  Though he wanted to growl at her—and do other things much worse—Krish clenched his jaw tight and methodically locked the door for the night, the resounding clicks adding to the deafening chaos in his head. He punched in the night alarm, breathing in and out with slow, deliberate care.

  He followed Diya into the kitchen, where she was concocting her overnight mask. He watched as she took out a bottle of chilled cucumber juice from the fridge and squeezed some into a bowl. A dollop of aloe vera gel, fresh lemon juice, olive oil, and some crushed ice followed, and she began to whip it all up with a fork.

  Being insulted and then rudely dismissed sparked his already-simmering temper.

  “What the hell did you mean by kissing him? You’ve known him for less than half a second, and you let him plant one on you? Christ, Diya. When will you learn some restraint? How much do you want to bet that he’s messaging his friends as we speak and gloating about kissing Beauty Mathur? Do you even know what he’s thinking right now?”

  All evening, he’d been in agony. Seeing her ride away on the Harley with that man, imagining, wondering about things he had no business thinking about. God. What was wrong with him?

  “I do not. What is he thinking, Krish?” Her eyes flashed, and the crushed ice in the bowl had transferred into her voice. She set the bowl aside on the kitchen counter and crossed her arms across her chest, making the soft pink leather of her jacket stretch over her girlie biceps and shapely shoulders. “What do you think Neil is thinking? Tell me, Krish, what would you think if you’d been in his shoes tonight?”

  That I wouldn’t have stopped at one kiss. I would have bent you over the bike and—

  Appalled, Krish cut off the thought but couldn’t delete the image it had spawned in his head. It spread through him like fire. His hands, his whole body itched to fulfill the promise of that picture.

  He took a gulp of the whiskey, holding the glass like a lifeline with both hands. He would not lose control, not in any aspect of his life. He could not allow it.

  “Tell me, Krish. Tell me what you think of me.”

  Why wasn’t she calling him Beast? He positively felt like one now.

  “You know what I think,” he rasped out. God, he sounded hard, harsh … insane. He cleared his throat.

  She shook her head. “No, I don’t know. What do you think of me, Krish? What do you think about me? Who am I to you? What am I to you? Tell me.”

  He took another gulp and felt his lungs burn as wildly as his blood. Her wide, smoky eyes went wider at his actions. Did he remind her of his father? He was on his second glass today, past his self-imposed limit. One beer for weeknights and three fingers of scotch for weekends—he’d followed that regime for years. When he slipped, nothing good transpired on those nights.

  “I think you should worry less about what I think and more about what Neil thinks. I trust you both had a good time. When are you meeting him next?” Stick to Kamal Uncle’s plan. Focus on the reality, not on a fairy tale. “Let’s hope he’s open-minded enough about the kiss—”

  “He is,” she cut him off. “But you think I shouldn’t have kissed him. You think I went too far for a first meeting,
don’t you?” She pushed away from the kitchen counter and got in his face. Her eyes glittered like shards of broken moonlight.

  “Indian culture is conservative,” he tried again, swallowing the bitter taste in his mouth.

  She snorted in disgust. “Indian or American, every culture is hypocritical, as you well know. Different rules for men and women, for the privileged and the underdogs, as you have pointed out on numerous occasions before. But forget about general societal defects. Let’s talk about me specifically. You don’t think I should’ve kissed Neil?”

  Krish wanted to run far away from this conversation, but his legs had turned to lead. “Not on the first meeting.”

  “Why not? Isn’t it expected on a date? I know you’ve kissed women on first dates. You spent a large part of your college life dating, kissing, having one-night-stands with complete strangers. Or was it all lies and boasts? Tell me, Krish. Tell me why you can do all of that, and yet, when I kiss a man—someone my father approves of, someone I might marry—it’s somehow wrong? Shouldn’t I know what kissing him feels like before I agree to marry him?”

  Logic. The last thing he’d expected from Diya was logic.

  “Are … you?” His heart thundered inside his chest. He was finding it impossible to breathe, much less compute a full sentence.

  The frosty sheen on her face cracked. Some emotion he was too stupid to recognize flashed on her face. Then, it was gone.

  She stepped even closer; in her heels, she was taller than him. She leaned in, and for a microsecond, he thought she was going to kiss him. For a microsecond, he imagined grabbing her and kissing her.

  She sniffed at his mouth and slapped him with the truth instead. “Are you drunk?”

  “Not yet.” But he was buzzed, and it sickened him that he wanted to blame his lack of control on the liquor or on her. He was no better than his father.

  She frowned at the glass in his hand. “How much have you had to drink tonight?”

  Not nearly enough.

  “Enough,” he said in a tone as bitter as his tongue.

  Her mouth opened to maybe scold him but pressed closed again without uttering a word. Some of her anger melted from her eyes.

  God. She was so beautiful that even looking at her hurt his heart. Her lips formed a perfect bow shape and seemed perpetually on the verge of laughter. They were unsmiling now and rosy and shiny. From her lipstick? From licking her own lips the way she did with a quick swipe of her pink tongue? Or were they like that from kissing Neil Upadhyay?

  He could still see them in his head. See her hold another man, smile at him, lean into him. Allow his hands on her.

  A rage he hadn’t known he could feel, that he hadn’t allowed himself to feel, rose up and choked him. And suddenly, he had to kiss Diya. He snaked an arm around her waist and pulled her tight against him. The leather of her jacket was cold, her hands were cold, and all he wanted to do was warm her up.

  Liar! He wanted to wipe that man’s kiss from her lips.

  He gave her moment to read the intent on his face. A moment to make up her mind whether to stay in his arms or push him away. To flee. When she didn’t move, he gave in to absolute madness.

  Only once, he thought, nipping greedily on her luscious mouth. He skimmed his tongue across the seal of her lips, asking, begging to be let into the light.

  Only once, he told himself, his mouth opening over hers, his teeth grazing over her fleshy bottom lip.

  “Open up, sweetheart.” He was grateful beyond belief that he couldn’t taste anyone else on her lips. Just Diya. Only Diya. Sweet, passionate Diya.

  “Krish?” she mumbled against his lips, her voice shaky. Dreamy. Bemused.

  Her body trembled in his arms, and he felt vindicated, both powerful and powerless at the same time.

  Christ. He wasn’t drunk. He knew what drunk felt like. This wasn’t that. This was madness, pure and simple.

  “Come on, babe. Let me in.” He nibbled on her lips, licking them like candy. “Just once. One kiss before you …”

  She went taut as a mannequin in his arms. The next second, she shoved at his chest with both hands. He let her go at once, amber liquid sloshing over his hand.

  “Before I what?” Her face, which had been flushed with wonder moments ago, bloomed with hurt.

  She shoved at him again, harder. He stumbled back a step.

  A nasty feeling of déjà vu settled over him when his hip rammed against the granite countertop. They’d been here before. Done this before.

  Why can’t I have just one kiss?

  The Violent Femmes song roared inside his head like a foghorn. Yes, they’d done this before on Diya’s twenty-first birthday, right here in Dallas. Only, back then, she’d begged for the kiss, and he’d refused to give her one. He’d wanted to erase the hearts he’d seen forming in her eyes for years. He’d succeeded. He’d destroyed them.

  “Before I what, Krish?” Her voice had lost its coolness, its logic. It was sharp enough to cut now. Make him bleed. “Before I marry Neil? Before I go back to Mumbai and my life? Before you go back to pretending there’s nothing between us? Nothing, except friendship and family connections?”

  She grabbed the glass in his hand, and with a flick of her wrist, she poured its contents down the drain.

  That was really good scotch, he wanted to say, but he seemed to have lost his voice.

  She rinsed the glass in the sink and left it to dry on a mat. Then, she turned back to beam her hate at him.

  He couldn’t look away, not even if his life depended on it. She looked magnificent in leather and jeans and righteous anger.

  “I love you, you fool,” she shouted, fisting her hands in front of her as if she wanted to box him. “I’m in love with you. I’ve been in love with you since I was six years old. I’m not going to marry Neil, you big buffoon. I’m not going to marry anyone. Not ever. Like you, I’ve decided marriage is not for me. So, don’t worry. And don’t go all psychotic, thinking I’m going to trap you because of a kiss or start dreaming about castles and rainbows again. Or run to Daddy and make him impose his will on you. Been there, done that. Never again.”

  She lost steam then. She wrapped her arms around her stomach, as if to hold herself together. “I’ll get over you, Krish. I swear it.” Two fat teardrops rolled down her cheeks. She brushed them away with furious hands. “One way or another, I will get over you,” she vowed.

  She ran then, leaving him rooted to the kitchen floor, stunned and horrified that, with just a handful of words, she’d smashed through all of his convictions, his decisions, and the airtight life he’d built around himself.

  Chapter 11

  For a full minute, Krish stared at the empty space Diya had left behind and prayed his hearing had failed him. Then, before his brain could fully process what his next actions or words should be or would mean, he found himself inside her room.

  Moonlight spilled in through the glass panes of the patio doors, giving the otherwise gothic-dark master bedroom some dimension. Diya was on her knees in the middle of the room, sobbing noiselessly. He joined her there.

  “Don’t.” He swallowed hard, undone he’d caused this, that he’d made her cry.

  “I can’t help it. I’m a cry baby, remember?” she wailed.

  Yes, Diya was an impassioned soul, a self-proclaimed drama queen. She bawled twice a week at least, if not more. But these tears seemed real—were real. He’d hurt her. Badly.

  He’d sworn an oath to himself at fifteen that he’d never be the cause for someone’s disappointment or pain or tears. But, no matter what he did or how he denied himself, he ended up hurting the people he loved.

  He loathed to turn into his father. He didn’t know how to stop it from happening.

  He gently touched her face, wiping the salty streaks with his thumbs. A quiver went through her, and she crumbled further, so he gathered her up in his arms and pressed her face into his shoulder.

  She hadn’t cried when he disappointed her nine
years ago. She’d been brash and caustic then and retaliated by breaking their engagement.

  “It’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind. You cannot force me to marry him,” she’d said to her father when he tried to reason with her.

  Krish had listened to it all in silence. What could he have said anyway when he was so clearly the cause of her misery? And, because she hadn’t cried, he’d been able to let her go. It had been the right thing to do.

  “I hate tears,” he said. He couldn’t bear to see her cry.

  “I know that,” she sobbed into his shoulder. “I’m sorry. I can’t seem to … help it. I’m a drama … queen, na?” She pushed away from him, rubbing her runny nose with the back of her hand. “Ugh. Sorry for being all disgusting and melodramatic. I’m PMSing. I’ll be fine in a couple of days. But don’t worry. It’s not your problem. Besides, I’ve done what Daddy asked. I can leave now. So, I think I’ll catch the first flight out tomorrow. Get out of your hair.”

  She was making excuses for him, letting him off the hook—again. It shamed him. And it maddened him that she thought of him as such a cad, such a coward that he’d allow her to shoulder the blame for him.

  He tunneled his hands into her glorious mane of silky-soft hair, but instead of shaking her like he’d intended to do, he slanted his mouth over hers and kissed her—again.

  There! Now, she couldn’t apologize for him or his inadequacies or spout silly ideas about leaving him. Not ever again.

  He swallowed her, “Urk!” and taking full advantage of her open mouth, he took the kiss deeper, tasting her shock, her anger, her tears, and most of all, her desire.

  He slid his tongue into her mouth when she tried to shift away, to talk. He sucked on her lips, her tongue. He wasn’t gentle; he didn’t know how to be right then. Not that she was complaining about it from the sounds she was making. Within minutes, her arms crept up to lock around his neck while she tried to suck his tongue into her mouth. He squeezed her closer.