by Reet Singh
He hadn't seen any signs of a child - he didn't think he could bear it if Mohini had lost a daughter as well as a husband.
She smiled - a poor, twisted substitute for the real thing, but a smile nevertheless.
'Our daughter. Govind fixed on the name as soon as we learned we were pregnant. He started calling my baby bump Ria - as if the gods would hear him and gift him a daughter ....'
Her face crumpled, and Aalok struggled to think of something comforting to say. Nothing came to him. He couldn't help her, not in any real sense, and a host of emotions - helplessness, rage, disbelief - stormed through him.
He wanted her to stop, but she just carried on. As if she could read his mind, she whispered, 'I have to do this, I have to - I owe it to Govind .... and to Ria. I need to lay him to rest.’
‘Do you know,’ she asked, ‘that I found a box all wrapped up and tied with a ribbon? It was in his suitcase and had my name written on it. That was the only thing I brought back with me from Delhi, from our flat. But ... I still haven't opened it.'
'I didn't want to know what was in it then, and I still don’t.' Mohini was looking at him and Aalok could sense that she needed to see if he understood. He wasn't sure if he did, but he nodded anyway.
'I'm scared that if I open the box, I will learn something about him - something that isn't a lie - and I'm not ready for that.'
Mohini rubbed her hands together, her movements slow and erratic. 'I can't explain what it did to me to find out from the police that I had been living a lie - it was devastating.'
Aalok didn't know what to make of it - he still had only a few of the facts. One, she'd married a man whom she'd met during college and had fallen in love with - a banker who played guitar. Two, that he'd been shot in front of her, and three, that the man had been some sort of an imposter.
There were clearly many layers to her story. She still had to explain Ria, for one thing, and Aalok dreaded that part - why wasn't the child here, at the village? What in heaven's name had happened to her?
Seven
Something Aalok had done or said had opened the floodgates and the memories were tumbling out. He could do nothing but listen as Mohini disclosed one disturbing fact after another.
'We transferred to Mumbai right after we got married. But then, an year later, we moved back to Delhi. Before too long we were packing again to relocate to the US. I was seven months pregnant by then and convinced I wouldn't get a visa, but I did. I now think Govind had contacts everywhere.'
'Not surprising if he was in the banking business,' Aalok intervened.
'That's the thing. He wasn't a banker. He wasn't anything - the police said it was a gangland style killing - an execution.'
Aalok jerked. 'What the hell!'
Mohini nodded, grim as death. 'We'd finished dinner - in paper plates, no less - because every little thing had been packed into storage or readied for shipping. Just a couple of suitcases lay about, open, waiting for last minute stuff.'
Mohini was far away - miles away in that other place. Aalok wanted to pull her back to him - figuratively, but also physically. He ached with her - ached to hold her in an effort to ease her pain.
'We were fooling around, waiting for daylight. I don't think we wanted to sleep. I, for one, was exhilarated, but also scared. We'd be taking off for New York at dawn, and I remember being nervous about the short notice, about the breakneck speed at which we were migrating across continents. Then I'd look at my husband and think that as long as I had Govind, nothing else mattered.’
Dragging in a deep breath, she continued, ‘Govind, I now feel, was wide awake for other reasons. I think he had a hunch that something was going to go down.....'
'I should have ignored the door bell. We weren't expecting anyone to come visiting at three in the morning. Before Govind could stop me, I had the door open and a man with the kindest eyes walked in. I sensed I'd made a horrible mistake when my husband just....he just went all quiet and still.'
'Oh god,' she moaned, rocking to and fro. 'I should have just...'
'Don't,' Aalok leaned over and put large hands over her tightly clenched fingers. They trembled under the firm pressure of his touch and it horrified him how cold they were - freezing cold. 'You don't have to....'
But she barely paused.
'When he spoke.....my husband, I mean.... Govind... he said '...don't hurt her.'
Mohini's voice was thick and low and Aalok prayed she would stop. This was more than he had bargained for. His skin fairly prickled as he became mute witness to the terror of that fateful day.
'The man didn't hurt me. Not once. But he did insist that I leave the room. He had some business to discuss with Mr Raj.'
Her mouth twisted. 'Mr Raj! So formal, when all the time he was planning to wipe Mr Raj off the face of the earth!'
'I didn't want to leave. I didn't budge. So he...he picked me up. And Govind.....' She swallowed past the tears choking her throat. Aalok moved closer and rubbed the fingers he held, hoping the warmth from his body would flow into her.
'He carried me away from Govind.’ She shuddered. 'And he looked at me as if....I don't know... such kind eyes.... I have no idea what he was thinking. I begged and pleaded. I ... I implored - but it made no difference. He just turned and left. I ran after him but he'd locked me in.'
Mohini wrenched her hands out of Aalok's grasp and wrapped her arms around her middle. She trembled something awful and Aalok swore under his breath. He had never felt so helpless in his entire life.
His own crisis - the one that had impelled him to flee Delhi - was nothing, not a thing compared to what she had gone through. And here she was - suffering through it again because of him. Because he hadn't been able to keep his hands off her.
Mohini drew in a shuddering breath. 'I don't think I stopped screaming. Not until I heard the shot. It wasn't loud, not like you'd expect - but I knew what it was. And that's when - then I became quiet. Everything was quiet. It was dawn and Delhi still slept.'
She sighed. 'Somebody must have called the police. They let me out and then the questioning began - who are you, how are you related to the....to the deceased, why the suitcases? So many questions, when all I wanted was to be with Govind. Even though he was gone.'
She shut her eyes and pressed on them with trembling hands as though to erase the images in her head. She jumped to her feet, her face blotched with anger and anguish and she paced restlessly in the cramped space afforded by the small, over furnished room.
'Incessant questions when nothing mattered but that my beloved husband lay dead. They didn't believe anything I said to them. Not a word. Do you know what they did?'
Aalok got up, too, overwhelmed by the deluge of horrifying information. When Mohini walked up to him, her face was contorted with bitterness and rage but her eyes were dull. Empty.
'Do you know what they did?' she asked again. When he shook his head, not daring to guess, she spat out the answer. 'They took me into custody.'
Aalok groaned and reached for her. He couldn't help himself. She'd been through hell and back, so he wrapped his arms around her and just held her because there was nothing else he could offer.
Mohini stiffened for the merest second and he was sure she would push him away. But then she crumpled against his solidness and tucked her face into him. She didn't sob or even whimper, just wet his tee with silent tears and his heart shattered under the burden of her pain.
'Hush, sweetheart!' He tightened his hold. 'Hush,' he whispered. He couldn't expunge the events of that awful day or bring back her husband, but he could let her work it out of her system.
She was limp in his hold and he feared she had exhausted herself, both emotionally and physically. There was only one thing to be done in that case. Sleep. Aalok picked her up and carried her to the bed.
§§§
She was safe in his arms this time round.
It wasn’t like the evening at the stairwell when she had experienced dread. Mohini squeezed her eyel
ids shut and tried to blank out her thoughts. She buried her face in Aalok's neck - taking strength from the strong column of his throat. Hanging on to him, she wrapped her arms tight around the broad, powerful shoulders.
She let the musky scent of his skin invade her nostrils. She needed this - the salty warmth against her lips brought her back from that horrible place - it helped to block out the awfulness.
Aalok carried her to the bed and she burrowed into him. Closing her eyes and also her mind, she focused fiercely on the moment.
Her cheek rested against a pulse that beat just under the angle of his jaw, and the steady throb reassured her. She concentrated on the hardness of his chest against her breast, and on the ripple of muscle beneath her palms as he strode with seeming ease across the room.
She moved so that her mouth found the pulse at his neck, and it jerked, becoming erratic in an instant - and that also reassured her. This was now. This was mindless and far removed from the past.
He laid her down on the bed and gently disengaged her grip from about his shoulders. When he moved away, she shivered. Her eyes were shut but images intruded. Her mind craved blankness.
When he returned and covered her with a sheet, she whispered, 'I'm so tired....' The words held a wealth of meaning.
'Sleep,' he murmured, smoothing the hair back from her face. 'I'll be outside. Just yell if you need anything.'
'Don’t go...’
Had she said that out loud? Would he understand what she meant?
She was done being strong, but opening up was exhausting. She didn't want to think about the past - not even a little bit - didn't want to analyze anything. She'd asked him to stay but she didn't really know what that meant. She couldn't hear a sound - had he even heard her?
The bed creaked and his warm body slipped under the sheet. He joined his hard length to hers, but made no further move other than to hold her flush against him.
It wasn't enough. Her soul was frozen, brittle as ice. She needed his body heat but also desperately needed to forget. Going purely by instinct, she turned towards him, and her mouth unerringly found his even though her eyes were closed.
His breathing stilled and the man stiffened. He didn't kiss her back. It wasn't like before so she threw a leg across his body. He was so unfamiliar. She needed that - the strangeness of him was good.
He groaned, but still hesitated, his arms loose about her waist. He was nothing like the wild lover that he'd been in the garden. She needed that wildness, so she sat up, sliding just a little so that she was astride him.
She could feel his erection surge against her thigh, but still he made no move. Mohini, with single-minded focus, pulled her nightgown up and over her head. Eyelids wide open now, she looked into his blazing eyes as she tossed the white garment as far across the room as it would go.
'Please,' she said, her voice sounding raw and needy to her own ears, but she didn't care. She continued to watch his face. The eyes darkened and he drank her in, but instead of taking her up on her invitation, he positioned his palms on either side of her head.
For long seconds, he searched her face. She was gratified to find that the large man trembled - was it with desire or with rigid self-control? She couldn't tell, but she wanted none of the latter, so she took hold of his hands and placed them where she needed them ...
It was all the permission he needed - he reared upright and captured her mouth. She whimpered and opened up to him, thrilling in the touch of a determined hand that urged her closer. The other hand, made clumsy with the urgency of their combined need, tangled in her hair and prevented her from falling over backward under the explosive force of their kiss.
All too soon, or so it seemed to her, he moved, angling his body so he could access the side of her neck. She burned where his mouth touched, and gasped when he nibbled her earlobe. His tongue flicked in and out and nerve endings sprang into action, sending fiery signals to the core of her being.
She moaned when he moved yet again - but then jerked in delight when his lips found the valley between her breasts. When his hands pleasured her nipples, she arched back in unsubtle invitation, and he obliged by moving his warm mouth to where it could give greater satisfaction.
Swooning with the heat of her own arousal, Mohini gave herself up to the passion that his tongue stoked in her, writhing in anticipation when a roving hand pushed past the elastic of her panties.
And all this while he was fully clothed. Appalled at her selfishness, Mohini tried weakly to put some distance between their over-heated bodies. At his look of consternation, she ran a lazy finger down his shorts, over the turgid length of him, and he groaned in understanding, allowing her to unbutton him while he peeled off his tee.
That done, his wicked fingers snaked to the very center of her being and stroked lazily until her breathing quickened to match his, and her body fairly sang with longing. She needed to stay sane - wanted to make it up to him for ignoring him all this while, but he would have none of it - he rolled her off him to cover her clamoring body with his.
Completely preoccupied, she was unaware of him reaching for his wallet and extracting protection. His fervor matched hers perfectly, the rhythm so sublime that less than a minute after she opened to receive him, she was in the thrall of a mindless, staggering climax.
He followed rapidly and their shared frenzy induced after-tremors that made her moan into his mouth until they both collapsed, spent, in a tumble of sweaty, tangled limbs, and shuddering breathlessness.
Eight
Aalok closed his eyes but he couldn't sleep - the chirping of birds told him it was time for a morning cuppa.
It was tempting, the thought of tea, but even more enticing was the feel of the woman in his bed. Not 'feel' in any literal sense, since she had rolled away very unsubtly after their explosive coming together. She lay right there, within touching distance, but her body was curled away from him.
He wanted to peel the sheet off her and awaken her with his mouth and with his tongue. This time they'd take it slow and he'd remember to look into her eyes. He had a vague memory of trying - while they'd been in the throes of passion - to connect on more than just a physical level - but she'd kept her eyelids tightly shut.
It rankled. He had wanted to be watching when her eyes darkened with desire as he pleasured her, but she hadn't allowed it. Had she even known it was him?
It had never bothered him before - but he was a tiny bit annoyed at the speed with which she had put distance between their bodies and moved to the edge of the queen sized bed.
The morning didn't seem quite so inviting anymore. His confused thinking had ruined it for him. He hadn't been this conflicted since that time years ago when he had picked up the courage to defy his father - and there had been hell to pay. Something told him there'd be hell to pay in this instance too.
Idiot.
He'd been so hot for her, he'd discarded every bit of good sense at the same speed that he had discarded his clothing. And now he was conflicted - and it was strange.
Bloody strange. He was no foreigner to hormonal flare-ups that resulted in one-night stands. But because he'd done this kind of thing before, he knew something was different this time.
He watched as she slept - she was breathing evenly and he marveled that his noisy thoughts hadn't roused her. As gently as he knew how, he slipped out of bed and stretched long and hard to release the kinks in his body.
Unselfconscious in his nakedness, he padded about, setting the room to rights. He had just about finished picking their clothes off the floor when a familiar sound came to his ears.
Someone was at the entry to the annexe.
As the door creaked open, a breathy whisper of a voice floated in. 'Aalok? Hullo? Aren't you up yet?'
Tina! Bloody hell!
Galvanized into action, he grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his middle. If Tina walked in...... it didn't really matter to him personally, but he didn't think Mohini needed the drama of a public denunciation. Not
wasting a single second, he hurried out of his room and nearly bumped into the startled woman.
'Oh!' Tina said, falling back a step. Her eyes widened and a hand flew to her mouth. 'I'm sorry,' she mumbled, cheeks aflame. 'I didn't...'
'What is it?' He hissed, unable to keep the exasperation out of his voice.
She was absolutely the last person he wanted to see at this point of time. He didn't have much faith in her ability to understand what had just gone down in his room. Hell, he barely understood it himself.
'Why are you whispering?' Tina asked, her brow puckered.
Aalok couldn't very well tell her why. He shrugged, and drew the curtains closed, shutting off her view of the room behind him.
'You're whispering too,' he countered. 'Why is that?'