Pretty Vile Girl

by Rickie Khosla

  And much of that time was spent by Rubina at the Khar apartment indulging with Petey—either reading him comics, or playing board games with him, or simply watching TV. Toby usually hung around to supervise but by the fourth day, he was ready to leave his brother unattended with the guest.

  ‘He is a calm fellow otherwise. If you don’t agitate him, he will not trouble you,’ he had told Rubina as he prepared to leave the house for work.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry, Toby Bhai. I will be very gentle with the boy,’ she said reassuringly.

  By the time Toby returned around six that evening, his younger brother was no longer a virgin. In fact, the boy had climaxed with Rubina six times in just as many hours. Later that night, as the tired Petey moaned to sleep, Toby nudged him a few times.

  ‘So, what did that Madam and you do all day today, Petey?’

  ‘Catch-catch,’ the sleepy boy mumbled. ‘We played catch-catch,’ he said as his lights switched off for the night. He had a smile on his face.

  Eleven days after she had sex with Peter James, Rubina noticed spotting and then a milky white discharge. She squealed in delight. She knew that she didn’t need any blood or urine tests to confirm what she was already certain of. After all, she had lain in wait with bated breath for this to happen for days.

  Toby was feeling pleasantly anxious. The two headstrong women in his life were going to be gone from Mumbai the next day. For once, both had agreed to play the parts he had assigned to them with minimal fuss. He was finally going to sort out his life in the way he wanted. On his terms.

  Both women had been remarkably civil to each other for the past few days. And tonight, for dinner, Jazmeen had made some awesome Goan prawn curry. Perhaps her way of saying goodbye to Rubina, Toby thought. After all, the truth was that the whiny woman had been the first friend she had made in Mumbai. Rubina, on her part, had said nothing. Not even a word of thanks for the scrumptious dinner, though her tongue and fingers had continued to lick the empty plate long after she had finished the meal.

  All in all, things could be called satisfactory. There was nothing to complain about.

  ‘There is a three hour gap between the Gorakhpur and Goa trains. I can drop you a bit early and then come back home to take Rubina,’ Toby called out to Jazmeen from the dining table as she washed the dishes in the kitchen. Rubina was painting her nails, sprucing herself up before her travel.

  ‘Don’t bother, Toby, I will ask Sareen to give me a hand,’ Jazmeen’s faceless voice came back.

  ‘What have you told Katy?’

  ‘She doesn’t mind my being away for a few days. Anyway, what was poor Mamma going to say? No?’

  The clanging of steel and melamine from the kitchen continued unabated. In the brief moment of solitude, Toby reached out and delicately took the fingertips of Rubina’s in his, making sure not to smudge the brand new nail paint. Then he brought them up to his lips and languidly blew air on the wet dark-pink coating. The eyes of the two lovers stayed firmly connected as they smiled.

  Meanwhile, in the middle of scrubbing Rubina’s plate with a smudged dot of Vim bar, Jazmeen craned her neck to have a peek into the dining space. She caught her ex-lover and his Bitch No. 1 in their horny interlude. She ducked back immediately, making sure neither had noticed her.

  She smiled. Her face conveyed relief, of knowing, in the nick of time, what a futile investment she had been about to make on Toby. But Jazmeen’s smile was not just about that.

  It was also an involuntary reflex of contentment. The kind of emotion that comes from planning retribution for someone who deserves it.

  Rubina Aftab’s ultimatum to Toby James burst upon him like a tsunami of catastrophic proportions. ‘Pregnant!’ his mind screamed. ‘I didn’t even know Petey’s dick could work like that!’ That, of course, was untrue. He had joked about the boy’s morning wood many times before, even noticed his night emissions when he washed his underwear. But this? ‘Fucking unbelievable!’

  Unfortunately, the only thing that was ‘fucking unbelievable’ was that his randy little brother had just jeopardised their glorious opportunity to get rich. ‘How the hell did I not see this coming?’ Toby cursed himself. There was no point in blaming Petey. After all, how could the happy dimwit have known what his orgasms were destroying?

  Strangely, Toby bore no ill-will towards the con woman herself. He acknowledged that she had beaten him fair and square at his own game. ‘This woman will go far in this town,’ he predicted.

  Rubina’s proposal was straightforward—a 50:50 share of the fifty lakh booty as her price to stay quiet. Else, Toby could wave bye-bye to the riches he had dreamed of and face whatever else lay in store for him and his brother when she filed rape charges against Petey.

  The woman had Toby by the balls. He had no choice but to say ‘Yes’.

  Rubina Aftab became Rubina Peter James in a quiet courthouse civil marriage ceremony two days later. No one else but the three of them was in attendance. The boys’ mother, back in Goa, was informed on the phone the next morning. Not that she registered the big news—she was already drunk on an entire bottle of feni when Toby had called.

  Rubina’s final phone call to Bhopal went much easier than she had anticipated. Of course, the news she supplied to Andaleeb Aapa was very bare, and mostly lies. Yes, Rubina confirmed, the boy was a mental case. And yes, she also confirmed, that the cheque had been given to him, to be encashed under his brother’s guardianship. And then came her bombshell. She was not going to be returning to Bhopal for some time. Andaleeb had a lot of questions, many of those asked amidst emotions of surprise, anger and frustration—but Rubina’s response had been firm and unequivocal.

  ‘So, you are 100 per cent sure? I think you are being foolish, girl! Listen to your Aapa one last time!’ Andaleeb urged.

  ‘Don’t worry about me, Aapa! When I make it big in films, you will realise how right my decision to stay back in Mumbai was,’ Rubina lied. She heard a deep sigh from the other side.

  ‘I guess there is nothing more left to do or say, is there? Just remember, our doors shall always remain open for you.’

  ‘Yes, Aapa. Goodbye!’ the now ex-mulaazim said to the doctor lady. ‘Goodbye, you bloodsucking bitch,’ was what she would have liked to say.

  Rubina Peter was in her brother-in-law’s bed on her wedding night. The sex was incredible. Toby was surprised that a young woman from a small town could know a 101 ways to bring erotic pleasures to a man.

  ‘You think Bhopali men don’t have dicks?’ she said, when he asked her about it. ‘How do you think we women get anything done out there?’

  Toby laughed. ‘Do women in Bhopal stay just as active in bed when they are pregnant?’

  ‘Oh yes, especially when they know that they are going for an abortion very soon.’

  All this happened while Petey slept peacefully on a cot in the hall.

  A week after her wedding night with her husband’s brother, Rubina was no longer pregnant.

  The bank paperwork happened quickly and efficiently. Bank officials tend to do that whenever they see a gigantic amount written on a cheque. Rubina Peter James and Peter James became the joint owners of a substantial bank account.

  And, with that, Peter James’ cameo in the Rubina–Toby ‘love’ story was now ready to be shelved.

  Six months later, while on a quiet holiday in Diu, on a lonely boat ride under the tranquil midnight sea, Toby strangled his kid brother. Rubina watched as the body was laden with stones and dropped into the water. Then, overtaken with emotions, mainly carnal, the two lovers had sex with each other under the moon until they were both sore and dry. At the time, both felt that their bond was going to be forever.

  How wrong they were.

  ‘Eeeeew!’ Rubina exclaimed when she realised that all four toilets in her train bogie were blocked. In fact, there was an inch of filthy brown liquid floating on the floor making them utterly unusable. ‘But they seemed fine when we started just a little while back!’ she ye
lled at the train attendant.

  ‘Don’t know what the matter is, Madam. I will get it checked as soon as we stop at Ratnagiri station,’ the harassed man said. He had already been yelled at by many.

  ‘How much time until we get to Ratnagiri?’ Rubina demanded.

  ‘Another hour or so…’

  ‘Saaley, if I could hold for that long...!’

  ‘But we are approaching Sangameshwar Road in five minutes. It’s a small station and we will stop there for only five minutes. If you want… but be quick, Madam.’

  Seven minutes later, Rubina was using the dirty toilet at the women’s washroom of Sangameshwar Road Railway Station. ‘What a relief!’ she said to herself as she got up and straightened her clothes. When she tried to flush, a narrow piddle of soiled water trickled out of a rusty pipe, and mixed with the yellow puddle below. Rubina rolled her eyes and unlatched the door of her stall.

  The face she saw as the door swung open gave her one of the biggest shocks of her entire life.

  ‘You?’ her nasal voice squealed in astonishment. ‘What the hell are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in…’ was all she was able to say before the blow landed on the side of her face, stunning her instantly.

  Seconds later, a partially conscious Rubina had dropped to the floor of the squalid toilet of the decrepit railway station.

  The fifteen-bogie train huffed out of the station a couple of minutes later, repeatedly blowing its trumpet like horn. Four hours later, when it completed its journey to Karmali, Goa— Rubina’s stop—she was not on board. Her life journey had already ended hours earlier.

  In fact, by then, Rubina Peter James was lying at the bottom of Hamswara Lake about twelve kilometres from Sangameshwar Road Railway Station. Her body was laden with stones to hold her in place—and she was very, very dead.

  10

  Prince, Charming

  The train finally chugged into what is touted as the world’s longest platform at the Gorakhpur Railway Station after a full day of travel. Jazmeen got off her bogie and was immediately swarmed by a bevy of men, all dressed in dishevelled red shirts and soiled white pyjama-pants or dhoti, vying for her attention. Momentarily, an angry voice behind them yelled at everyone to back off and leave the traveller alone.

  ‘Hello Madamji, did you have a pleasant journey?’ the man in the plain black uniform with shiny buttons asked Jazmeen, after shoving the coolies aside and presenting himself in front of her. He was a dark and lanky fellow with a moustache. He introduced himself as Kartik. ‘I have been sent by Chhotey Sir,’ he said. The rest of the world might have known him as Arty Sir or Boss, but here, in strictly hierarchical small-town Uttar Pradesh, important people were addressed only by their titles. Jazmeen’s title, for example, was Madamji for her entire stay, as she amusedly realised soon.

  Later, as the dark-paned, air-conditioned Mercedes made its way through the extreme bustle of narrow, messy streets, Jazmeen noticed Kartik’s eyes upon her in the car’s rear-view mirror more than several times. Clearly, the man was inquisitive. Or, maybe, just an ogler.

  ‘Where are we going?’ she asked.

  ‘To Chhotey Sir’s farmhouse about ten kilometres away,’ Kartik replied excitedly. ‘You will like it! It’s where all of Chhotey Sir’s…’ the man came to a sudden stop, as if he had said too much.

  ‘…conquests come and stay. Chhotey Sir’s whores. Like me. Immoral and without any self-esteem,’ Jazmeen completed the sentence in her head. She felt disgusted. She stared outside the window as the ugly landscape of dingy shops and dreary houses whizzed past her five-star cocoon.

  Chhotey Sir, better known as Arty (or Arty Sir/Boss among the non-Page 3 folks) in Mumbai, was born Arjun Singh Rathore to one of the stalwart families of eastern Uttar Pradesh. His father was the famous Sawai Kant Rathore, a one-time Chief Minister of the state. Shri S K Rathore had died in a tragic car accident way back when Arty was barely ten, leaving charge of the young boy and his older brother Karan to their mother, Subhadra Laxmi Rathore. Subhadra was an erstwhile princess herself, the sole heiress of her parents’ estate—and with the help of her princely endowments and the matching millions secured clandestinely by her dead husband during his political tenure, the bereaved family continued to lead a life of privilege and comfort. If anyone in and around Gorakhpur were to be asked to name the First Family of the area, ‘the Rathores’ would be the name offered unhestitatingly.

  Despite his lineage, Arty didn’t want anything to do with the political heritage of his father; so he decided to study Economics Honours from St Stephen’s College in Delhi, and followed it up with an MBA from Brookes at Oxford. After completing his education, Arty took up a job as a Financial Analyst at a stockbroking company in London. Those were the boom years for stock markets world over, and Arty made barrelfuls of money for his firm as well as for himself. Life was good, with no short supply of all the mental, physical and material porn that a young and virile man can ever need—and Arty may have continued to stay in England for the rest of his years if it hadn’t been for the emotional entreaties of his mother urging him to return home. Shockingly for everyone who knew him, Arty actually relented to his mother’s pleas and came back to India. Gorakhpur, however, was much too small an oyster for a giant pearl like him, so settling there was out of the question. For Arty, nothing less than the voyeuristic lustre of Mumbai was going to do for the next adventures of his life.

  So, Arty Rathore settled in Mumbai, where he set his sights on Dalal Street and Bollywood.

  The game of making money in Mumbai proved to be just as thrilling as playing the high-rolling game of stocks in London. With some of his own riches, and plenty more from eager local and Middle Eastern clients, Arty smashed his way into the film financiers club in Bollywood. The first film he produced was a B-grade film called ‘Meri Izzat ke Saudagar’ (The Traders of My Modesty), starring a young starlet who wore practically nothing through most of the film, until, of course, she went after evildoers (her rapists, killers of her father, mother, brother etc.) with an AK-47, wearing leather overalls, tall boots and a black mask. The film was a giant hit in Middle India. Success begets success, and three similar films followed. In two years, Arty was in the big league, now funding bigger budget films with the likes of Akshay Kumar and Ajay Devgn.

  The pleasurable consequence of being associated with the world of glamour was in discovering what all its pursuers—especially the new, undiscovered female variety—were willing to do to gain a foothold in the industry. Young women, between the ages of 18–22, were plentiful, each with a more breathtaking face and hotter body than the other. Usually, the presence of acting talent was inversely proportional to the sexiness of the subject. Also absent in most cases was the urge to work hard to learn from or make up for shortcomings. Hey, if open legs were already opening doors for them, where was the need to do more?

  Needless to say, a film producer like Arty had had a new pair of breasts flung at him each day of the year. For the past couple of months, the pair he had been fondling loyally belonged to an ‘upcoming model and actress’ called Chanchala Joshi. She was tall and lissom, with eyes so shapely they might have compelled Ghalib to write couplets had he bumped into her in the narrow bylanes of Old Delhi. The girl’s face was attractive, but no match to the bounties found elsewhere on her body. Sadly, not much could be said when she opened her mouth. She had an IQ lower than that of a tadpole.

  That particular Madamji was lodged at the same Gorakhpur farmhouse as Jazmeen. Both women had observed each other’s presence but neither had spoken a word.

  Three nights passed before Arty decided to visit the farmhouse for a rendezvous. From the choice of Madamjis he had available to him, he decided to pick the new one. He had been intrigued by Jazmeen from the moment he first laid his eyes on her.

  Jazmeen was having a lazy Sunday and had been about to get into the swimming pool when her mobile phone rang. She made a face when she saw the number. She almost pressed the red button—like the fou
r previous times she had done since she had arrived in Gorakhpur—but changed her mind at the last minute.

  ‘What is it, Toby?’

  ‘Why haven’t you been picking up your phone?’

  ‘Why do you think? Anyway, if there is anything important, speak up quickly. I am in the middle of something important.’

  ‘How is it going with Arty Sir?’

  ‘Is that all? I am disconnecting…’

  ‘No, wait, I just wanted to tell you that I can’t seem to get in touch with Rubina. Has she called you by any chance?’

  Jazmeen laughed, ‘Why the hell will she call me?’

  ‘It has been three days since she left for Goa. I wonder what the problem is…’

  ‘Whatever the problem is, it is yours, Toby. She became just your problem the minute you sent me to another man’s bed,’ Jazmeen said with scorn as she killed the connection, tossed the phone aside, and slunk into the cool waters of the pool.

  Sitting alone in his Mumbai flat, Toby stared at his phone screen as it flickered off. He felt perturbed. Just days ago, he had a choice of two women in his bed. Now he wondered if he had lost them both.

  Their lovemaking was slow, as if every thrust was a story that needed to be savoured individually, in its entirety. He lay on top of her, his elbows on the bed by the sides of her breasts, and his fingers around her face and hair. Her hands were digging into his taut buttocks, guiding him as deep inside her body as it would allow. He kept staring at her face and she back at his. There was satisfaction in watching each other’s facial reactions, as if they were some kind of reinforcement of the heaven that their bodies and minds were experiencing. Neither was a novice when it came to lovemaking, but this was different. They both knew it the minute their bodies had connected. This was special. They were experiencing the most astounding sexual joy they had ever known. It was as if their bodies had been custom-built for each other. As if various parts of his body had discovered in her crevices that were specially constructed for him and him alone.