Pretty Vile Girl

by Rickie Khosla

  Amarjit’s mother had passed away a couple of years earlier, and her father had succumbed to a heart attack recently. It was after that loss that Amarjit, her mind numb with grief and loneliness, had written to Jasmine on an email ID that she had got (and held on to) from a common friend years ago.

  Jasmine’s warm reply, including her request to visit Darjeeling, had made Amarjit cautiously ecstatic. An invitation to ‘come and stay with me for as long as you want’ was extended in a jiffy. When Jasmine arrived in Darjeeling, the two ex-lovers resumed their companionship as if the dozen years that separated them had never existed. Their bodies may have been heavier, but the giggles were the same. So were the kisses. And the touch that still caused raptures.

  Jasmine and Amarjit stayed together for almost five months. Jasmine’s world seemed brand new. It was as if everything she had left behind in Delhi had ceased to be of value anymore—not her token marriage, not her fraudulent NGO, not her shallow friends. None of it was missed. Nothing mattered anymore.

  Not even her vexing mother who would call ten times a day and pour poison through the earpiece. Pretty soon, even those calls had started to dwindle.

  Amarjit was like a dream that Jasmine wished would go on endlessly. It’s a shame that dreams don’t last.

  ‘I have fallen in love with someone else,’ Jolly had said quietly when he had called her one evening almost five months since she left Delhi. ‘It is time for both of us to move on,’ he had said in a voice that had no guilt or remorse.

  Reality. It had arrived to play spoilsport in Jasmine’s life. Like a downpour on one’s wedding day.

  That short five-minute phone call had made Jasmine shake with the kind of fear that she had never known previously. She was suddenly possessed with the mortal terror that she was about to lose everything. She had just realised that while she was busy rekindling a forgotten flame from a distant past, the world had decided to move on to a new future. A future in which Jasmine was no longer needed. A future that was bent on dismantling decades of her life that she had built piece by piece with her own blood and sweat.

  Reality. Like that naked truth that one can’t deny by just shutting one’s eyes or burying one’s head. There is a reason why the ostrich is considered a stupid bird.

  It was the realisation that the token marriage, the sham NGO and the shallow friends that Jasmine had left behind in Delhi were not just some insignificant scenes in the drama of her life. They were, in fact, the main act! How could she part with her own reality? The only thing that could be parted with was the intermission—the five-month-long pause in her 34-year-old performance. That’s what Amarjit and Darjeeling had been. A mere intermission, nothing more.

  Reality had to be faced like an awful confession The worst part of it was accepting that her mother had been right after all.

  ‘I am very happy to see that you have come back to your senses,’ her mother said when Jasmine called her while waiting for her flight at Bagdogra airport near Darjeeling, en route to Delhi via Kolkata.

  ‘Ma, what is the point in discussing this now?’

  ‘To have wanted to foolishly give up everything that you have built in Delhi… I really expected more intelligence from you, dear,’ the older woman complained.

  There was no response from the daughter.

  ‘Be firm with Jolly. Last time you had to get rid of impediments so he could marry you. This time, you will need to do so to keep him married to you.’ The elderly woman sighed. ‘Why do men allow their penis to rule their head, I shall never understand!’

  Jasmine gave a sad laugh. ‘And I thought his penis had stopped working by now,’ she said. ‘Apparently not.’

  ‘Apparently not,’ her mother agreed. ‘We need a new tactic now. It’s been so long since you gave him the money to start his business that even if anyone calls it embezzlement now, it’s too old to really harm anyone. Have you told him exactly what I told you to say?’

  ‘Yes, he thinks I am going to be very accommodating. Very understanding of his situation. I am sure he feels I am ready to let him go and start a new life for myself in Darjeeling.’

  ‘Well, the man has proved to be just the kind of fool that I always knew he was,’ her mother said. ‘Anyway, get back to Delhi and get the problem out of the way.’

  ‘Yes, Ma.’

  ‘You have made the right decision, dear… you know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, Ma. I know I’ve got to go now. My plane is about to board.’

  As Jasmine tossed aside her love story for a second time, espousing instead the real world that waited for her back in Delhi, she vowed to restore the equilibrium that Jolly had so callously decided to disturb. She promised to never again allow her primal needs to threaten the life she had so painstakingly put together.

  But, of course, just a few months after she had made that solemn pledge to herself on a small aircraft flying out of Darjeeling, Jasmine’s carnal desires were back. A nymph called Deepika had landed in front of her like a hurricane and was about to sweep her into a vortex of blinding passion and unbridled lust.

  As per the plan concocted by Deepika and him, Jolly had started to keep away from home, staying mostly in Mumbai—and also occasionally travelling abroad. His trips were ostensibly to build a new franchise and supplier relationships for his food business that was growing briskly. Jasmine didn’t mind his absence one bit for she had the full house to herself morning, noon and night.

  It was mainly the night that Deepika was interested in.

  The first time the two women kissed, it was very tempered, almost tepid. It was the day after the episode in the bathroom. Deepika was standing next to Jasmine, who was seated at her desk in the study room. Both women were looking at Jasmine’s laptop, poring over the final list of guests expected at the party. As the list was scrolling down, Deepika spotted a couple of spelling mistakes in the names, and not that it was required, bent forward over the keyboard to correct them. With her torso leaning over Jasmine, and with her arms stretched forward, she proceeded to delete the existing text and type the correct letters, the soft motion of her mildly swaying bosom about half a foot away from Jasmine’s eyes. When she had finished typing, Deepika began to straighten her body, ever so slowly, away from Jasmine’s face. The invitation was screaming with subtlety. The prize was offering itself on a platter. All that the winner needed to do was to reach out and grab it.

  Before Deepika could straighten herself completely, Jasmine raised her hand and held Deepika’s elbow. Then, she slowly pulled the girl’s arm towards her, effectively bringing the rest of her body closer along with it. Slowly, Deepika’s face was aligned right in front of hers. Jasmine’s hungry eyes watched the young 17-year-old’s face. The eyes were wide open, the irises inside the dark brown pupils dilated as if opening up in acceptance too. There was a coating of kajal-mascara around the long lashes, stylish and perfect even though they had been made with a very cheap pencil. The eyebrows above the almond eyes were neat and well-shaped. Above them rested a forehead that was blemish-free, the young skin displaying not one fine line. The forehead poured into a confident nose—that shapely piece of perfection was capable of winning the Miss India crown all by itself! At its base flared two nostrils, one of the sides bearing an uncovered dot where Deepika must have been pierced at some point as a child.

  An abundant lock of hair dropped over Deepika’s right cheek, interrupting Jasmine’s grand exploration. It compelled Jasmine to bring up her free hand to delicately pick up the truant lock and perch it back atop the right ear from where it had tripped. The girl’s flawless right cheek was now exposed again, the skin straight and taut over a prominent cheekbone. Jasmine’s eyes scanned her face.

  A movement drew Jasmine’s attention to a pair of lips the colour of bubblegum. A pink tongue had just darted out from within them and swiftly washed the surroundings with a fresh coat of saliva, almost as if to ready them to receive an important visitor. There was a faint presence of lipstick on them.
Jasmine wondered how the girl had procured any makeup at all. Not that there was any need for that artificiality. The lips were plump and perfect, slightly parted, ready with promise. Awash with anticipation.

  Jasmine moved her face towards her young, consenting princess. When their lips touched for the first time, it was as if they were merely assessing each other’s body temperature. The action was brief, not more than a couple of seconds. Jasmine moved her face back, her eyes not leaving the girl’s for even a second. What she saw in them made her bolder, to go for another round—this one longer, more determined.

  The new kiss lasted almost a minute. Jasmine closed her eyes and enjoyed it. Deepika kept her eyes open and waited for it to end. When it did end, Jasmine’s mind started to make mental arrangements of how she was going to start a clandestine physical relationship with her eager virgin.

  Deepika, meanwhile, was revelling in the fact that her plan of ending the life of a disgusting, murderous monster couldn’t have had a better beginning.

  An approaching sound in the next room abridged any further activity for the evening. Jasmine’s was a big house and it had many staff flitting around the property indulging in various forms of domestic activity. The next step in the erotic tango between Jasmine and Deepika had to be taken at night, once the servants had retired to their quarters and the house was free of prying eyes. Jasmine decided to give the coming weekend off to all her household personnel.

  She couldn’t wait any longer to take Deepika to bed.

  Deepika laughed, making Jasmine look up at her in the mirror they were both facing. Jasmine was seated at her elaborate dressing table in her bedroom. Deepika stood right behind her, with a hairdryer and a roll-on hairbrush in her hand. She had been playing with the older woman’s hair, trying to give it a new style that she had seen in the latest Cosmopolitan in Jasmine’s house. The girl had insisted that she try giving Jasmine ‘that sexy look’, and—after a litany of ‘Please, Please, Please!’—the persistent teenager had managed to convince her.

  ‘The time for fun and games will come shortly. No harm in indulging this sweet, sexy thing, in the meantime!’ Jasmine had said to herself when she gave in to the young girl—but only after displaying some mild faux-anger. A delighted Deepika had then proceeded to give Jasmine a shampoo, and now, the styling experiment was well underway. Jasmine admitted that ‘that sexy look’ that Deepika was aiming for was slowly but surely beginning to materialise.

  ‘Why are you smiling?’ Jasmine asked pleasantly when she looked up at the giggling girl in the mirror.

  ‘I was just thinking how scandalised anyone would be if they saw me at your place like this, so late at night!’

  Jasmine smiled as well. ‘You told me that the new maid at the orphanage sleeps like a horse. I hope that’s true!’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Deepika nodded her head. ‘She’d be snoring away like a train engine right now!’

  ‘My husband is in Mumbai. And there are no servants around either. We have nothing to worry about.’

  ‘That’s why I was smiling…’

  The two pairs of eyes connected. There was no innocence in either of them.

  The evening had begun innocently enough. With the house entirely at her disposal that Saturday evening and most of Sunday, Jasmine had planned to whisk Deepika away from Innocent Dreams for the night, and deposit her back early morning the next day before anyone at the orphanage woke up. She had been waiting for the girl in her car a mere ten steps away from the orphanage iron-gates for over an hour when Deepika finally emerged. The time was almost 11:30. The girl looked back at the main door just once, and then ran to the waiting car.

  They giggled at each other as Deepika closed the car door softly. Jasmine had really wanted to, but she had dared not smooch the object of her desire sitting no more than two feet away from her. Just as she was about to put the car into gear and speed off, her phone rang. She looked at the flashing screen and her face hardened.

  ‘Aren’t you going to take the call?’ Deepika asked inquisitively after the phone had rung five times. The look on Jasmine’s face was peculiar. She looked like a felon who had been caught red-handed committing a crime. Jasmine looked up from the phone towards Deepika, nodded, and pressed the green button.

  ‘Yes, Ma?’

  Pause.

  ‘Oh, not yet… but I was just about to go to bed. Boring evening, didn’t go out today.’ Jasmine looked over at Deepika and shook her head. Deepika merely looked on.

  Pause.

  ‘Yes…’

  Pause.

  ‘But why? I told you I was managing fine! Why would you say that to Jolly?’ Jasmine sounded mildly angry.

  Pause.

  ‘I told you that I can get a… a… person from the orphanage whenever I need help, didn’t I?’

  Pause.

  ‘No, don’t bother, Ma!’

  Pause.

  ‘How the hell should I know when Jolly is going to release Prabhu? And why should I care?’

  Pause.

  ‘Yes, yes, it’s fine... boy, girl, whoever is available, Ma—why are you so concerned?’

  Pause.

  ‘Yes, OK, I will.’

  Pause.

  ‘OK, I’m hanging up now, Ma… yes, yes, yes… bye.’

  Jasmine ended the call and flung the tiny phone in the space between the two front seats.

  ‘So annoying…’ she mumbled, barely audibly. Then she looked at the waiting girl seated next to her and her temper subsided immediately. Nothing was going to ruin the joy she had planned to have tonight. She smiled at the gleaming face, radiant even in the feeble light from the street.

  As they drove away from Innocent Dreams, both had felt like naughty schoolgirls up to no good. This promised to be a night that neither was going to ever forget.

  After the hair experiment, which had turned out to be fabulously successful, Deepika had suddenly felt hungry.

  ‘Should I make Maggi for the two of us?’

  When Deepika returned from the kitchen with two steaming bowls of noodles, she found Jasmine admiring her new hair in the mirror.

  ‘How did you learn to do this?’ Jasmine asked.

  The girl laughed blithely. ‘Oh, I used to do my mother’s hair all the time. After that, it was just looking at photographs from the occasional magazine from the kabaadiwala bhaiyya.’ She laughed again for no reason at all. To Jasmine, it sounded like the tinkling bells of a ghungroo. Musical, unabashed, joyful, young.

  ‘You have such lovely hair,’ Deepika complimented. ‘You must have inherited that from your mother, na?’

  It was such a simple question, but there was never a straightforward answer when it came to the complicated relationship Jasmine shared with her mother.

  ‘I always wanted short hair myself. You know, like a pageboy cut,’ Jasmine said.

  ‘Yes, that would suit you so well. I think it will look good on me too.’ Then, as if she had just got a lightning bolt of an idea, Deepika said, ‘Let’s get the same haircut! You and me with a boy cut! It will be so exciting!’

  This time, Jasmine laughed, shaking her head slowly.

  ‘No, I’m serious!’ Deepika beseeched. ‘You’ve always wanted one. Even I have always wanted it! My mother wouldn’t ever let me, but now… who cares!’ she lied. Deepika had never cared for short hair, and even if she had, her mother would have been the last person to have objected to her daughter’s wishes.

  ‘No, you silly girl! I can’t. It won’t… look nice,’ Jasmine stammered slightly. ‘Plus, I think it will shock people no end!’

  ‘Oh, what do you care about what people say! I am sure Jolly Uncle won’t mind.’

  ‘Oh, he won’t mind, but…’

  ‘But? Your friends?’

  The question met with a derisive chuckle.

  ‘Then? Your mother? Would she mind? I mean, why…religious reasons?’

  ‘My mother will mind it for many reasons, I’m sure,’ Jasmine said, the amused demeanour replaced w
ith a tinge of bitterness.

  ‘Why?’

  Jasmine was reminded of the altercation she had had with her mother on this issue when she was in her teens. She vividly remembered the smack she had got on her face when she had angrily threatened to chop off her doll-like tresses with the pair of scissors that were always lying next to her mother’s sewing machine.

  ‘Not only do you want to act like one, now you even want to look like a boy? Stop behaving like a pervert!’ The exact words of her mother still rang as sharp as ever, even after twenty years. The stinging rebuke had shattered Jasmine’s desire for short hair forever.

  ‘She thinks short hair makes a girl look like a boy,’ Jasmine confessed.

  ‘That’s the silliest thing I ever heard!’ Deepika said promptly. ‘Sorry for saying so about your mother. Anyway, how will she even find out? You don’t have to tell her that you’ve got a haircut!’

  The girl’s innocence made Jasmine’s lips curl in a half-smile.

  ‘She is my mother. We tell each other everything.’

  ‘But you haven’t told her about me…’ Deepika said quietly. The comment made Jasmine look sharply at the girl, but Deepika kept staring at her almost-empty bowl of noodles. ‘I heard the conversation you had with your mother in the car.’

  ‘That… that was just… I mean, I have to keep some things from her sometimes…’

  ‘Why? Because she won’t… understand?’ the controversial line of questioning continued. ‘Does she not know about your feelings for…?’

  ‘My mother knows everything,’ Jasmine said. Then, after a few moments, she added quite resolutely, ‘Sometimes I think she knows me more than I know myself.’

  The midnight snack was finished in silence. Deepika kept looking at the older woman furtively. Jasmine seemed in turmoil, her face clouded with diffused anguish.

  Then, quite suddenly, Jasmine looked up and met Deepika’s eye.

  ‘When did you know?’

  ‘Know? Know what?’ Deepika hobbled at Jasmine unexpected question. ‘Oh God, what does she mean?’