No Escape from Love

by Reet Singh

  Not smart, dude! Not your usual style, not by a long stretch.

  The village air, despite its evident purity, had addled his brain. It was almost as if - and he shuddered at the thought - as if he was sixteen again, and trying to woo the girl that he fancied.

  The half-melted cube of ice fell from nerveless fingers. Good lord! He didn't fancy her, did he? They were just ships that passed in the night - was that the idiom he wanted, or was it something about strangers in the night?

  He shook his head in confusion. What the hell was he doing kissing her ear? He hadn't kissed a girl's ear in decades.

  The cause of his consternation, meanwhile, clattered the crockery and cutlery with unnecessary force as she set the table. She looked fierce, glaring at him now and again, making it very clear what she thought of him.

  He sighed. Apparently he'd transgressed another one of the intangible lines she kept drawing. They'd made love before and she’d pretended that nothing had changed. Was that what she wanted - to carry on as though they hadn't just made love again?

  'We have to talk,' he said.

  Mohini shook her head. 'Later. I'm hungry. Aren't you?'

  Her sharp, taut question did not encourage a response - especially when she'd already made it amply clear what she thought of his careless familiarity.

  And yet, his mind's eye kept seeing her as she'd been a short while ago - wanton and very, very familiar - a veritable firecracker in his arms. He couldn't unsee the images, and he couldn't unfeel the fiery passion that had consumed them both.

  He did not want to go back to how they'd been before – and it shocked the wits out of him, this epiphany. He wanted her still - even though she'd snubbed him so dramatically. It was crazy and it made his head spin.

  Bloody hell! This was way more complicated than he’d imagined, and way too sudden. The vague yearning made no sense to him. He should think about getting away from here, getting away from this woman. It would clear his head.

  He'd go home. His sisters, with their irreverent, irrational humor and their uniquely insightful perspectives, would remind him of what normal looked like. Normal was openness and blunt conversations. Normal didn't have dark silences and vague yearnings.

  Once home, he'd get to spend time with his mum - she'd been through hell and back with an abusive husband - she was living proof that giving in to yearnings didn't work in the real world. You needed rock solid evidence. It never paid to base a decision on flimsy-whimsy notions.

  Aalok chewed in morose silence, the food tasting like filter paper even though it had smelled great when he'd first walked in.

  He had to find out if it was safe for him to return to Delhi - and then he had to step on the accelerator and get the hell away from the attraction he felt for his hostess. If he had to make an ass of himself he'd rather do it in the company of a strong malt whiskey - and miles away from women who were smoldering and seductive one minute, and shot arrows of rebuke at him the next.

  His mind meandered all over the place, them came to rest on Mohini. Did she regret any of it - was that why she was inordinately mad? Maybe she blamed him - but that was absurd! They had danced in tandem - she'd been in tune with him every sensational, sensual step they'd taken.

  And now he was getting poetic. Dang! This was most unlike him!

  Aalok tossed his napkin aside and surged to his feet. It annoyed him when Mohini flinched at the sudden move.

  What the hell was she jumpy about?

  But he understood that this was exactly where the problem lay. Things had escalated between them much too fast, and well before they'd reached the place where, at the very least, there was mutual trust and understanding. It was disturbing that she imagined he'd ever hurt her.

  'I have to find your brother.' He stalked off, slamming the door in his rush to be out of the claustrophobic, unsettling atmosphere in the kitchen.

  §§§

  Micro-seconds after Aalok stormed out, there was a commotion of voices and Aalok's startled 'Hi...' was followed by a woman's sing-song, giggly response.

  Tina! And sounding more like herself – not weepy or churlish any more.

  The dishes could wait. Mohini flew out and crashed into the broad back of the man she'd vowed not to touch again, not even with a barge pole. Aalok helped her right herself, but then hastily withdrew to stand two feet away causing Mohini's mouth to tighten.

  The speed with which he removed himself from contact with her should have pleased her. It was precisely what she wanted. A no-touch contract. And yet, contrarily, her temper rose a notch at his exaggerated recoil.

  Biting her lip, she tried to ignore him, but she could sense an urgency about Aalok; a palpable restlessness that filled her with gloom for reasons she couldn't fathom.

  Shaking it off, she turned to greet Tina with decidedly overdone enthusiasm. The other woman gave her a bear hug and honored her with a resounding kiss.

  'I am so, so, so sorry, Mohini,' she trilled. 'I've been such an ass. An insufferably rude ass.'

  'Um...' Mohini managed, but was saved, by the appearance of Ritvik, from having to affirm Tina's completely truthful self-assessment.

  'Wow,' Mohini said, her eyes popping at the transformation in her brother. 'You look fabulous. You should shave more often. And bathe more than just once in a while.'

  Ritvik chuckled, winking at Mohini before he slipped an arm around a beaming Tina. 'It's this girl,' he said, nudging the girl in question. 'She brings out the best in me.'

  Mohini snorted, wanting to catch Aalok's eye, but staunchly resisting. She thought Aalok made a strangled noise, and her lips twitched despite her resolve to have nothing to do with the aggravating man.

  'I know what you're thinking,' Ritvik said. 'I'm sorry for the mess we made of everything.'

  'The mess I made,' Tina interjected. 'It wasn't your fault at all, darling.'

  'You don't know the half of it, Tina.' Ritvik said. He closed the distance and held out his hand to Aalok. 'Sincere apologies. I hope there's no permanent damage done.'

  Aalok made a big deal of fingering his jaw and wincing, before he waved away Ritvik's concern. 'All good. What's a right hook between friends?'

  'Man! I'm really sorry - I don't know what I was thinking.'

  'Ritvik!' Tina squawked, 'Did you hit him? Oh my god! He had nothing to do with anything.'

  'I know,' Ritvik sighed. 'It was just that...'

  Mohini, not wanting him to talk about why he’d hit the other man, made a desperate bid to distract them.

  'Aren't you two ready for lunch? We've just finished - it'll take me a minute to heat it up for you.'

  'Nah, we're good. Tina made sandwiches. We would have waited for you but I wasn't sure if you were catching up on lost sleep.'

  He planted a quick kiss on Tina's upturned face. 'I've heard of the kind of night my lovely fiancée put you through.'

  Turning to Aalok, he added, 'We merrily hijacked your accommodation - sorry about that but we had a ton of talking to do. What have you been up to, meanwhile?'

  While Mohini balked at the question, glad that it wasn’t directed at her, Aalok seemed to take it in his stride. 'Your sister took me on a tour of the other annexe. That's some outstanding needle work the women do, I must say. I was so .. er .. engrossed, I don't know where the time went.'

  'Just as well,' Tina simpered. 'We were enjoyably engrossed ourselves.' She giggled, and Mohini struggled to reconcile this coy girl with the fiery, unforgiving woman she'd been all day yesterday.

  'Well, I'm glad to see everything is all sorted out,' she said, heading off to the garden. 'But I need to sit down. I've had a long day. Many long days.'

  She threw a dark look over her shoulder at the three people responsible for upsetting the even tenor of her life. Not one of them had the grace to look ashamed. Shaking her head at their apathy, she slumped onto the garden swing and curled up with her feet tucked away beneath her.

  Rather than getting on with their own lives, they followed
her and found shady spots for themselves on the lawn. Mohini shut her eyes but she couldn't wish away the trio. Tina seemed in urgent need to explain herself, and so Mohini laid her head back against the cushions and prepared to listen.

  As Tina rambled on about how she'd grievously misjudged the whole situation with respect to the naked woman in Ritvik's apartment, Mohini gave the spiel only half her attention. The other half drifted to Aalok much against her will where he sat playing with a blade of grass in an abstracted, tense way.

  Tina related how the woman, Ritvik's neighbor, had been thrown out of her home by a habitually abusive husband right after he'd made love to her - a husband who had been warm and tender until his wife had said the wrong thing.

  Mohini winced at the horror of the picture Tina painted, but her attention was diverted by Aalok's reaction. He was still - tense as a bow string - his expression scarily bleak. He wasn’t looking at any of them though he faced the group.

  Tina, unaware that anyone in her audience was experiencing distress, continued with her story, embellishing it with details of an increasingly disturbing nature. According to her, the unguarded words uttered by the woman had fed her husband's paranoia and had turned him into a monster. He'd flung her out and latched the door against her, not a whit bothered that his wife was stitch-less and covered only in bruises.

  Engrossed in her scrutiny of Aalok, Mohini noticed his hands clench into fists. The veins bulged in his neck causing his face to turn an alarming shade of purple. Mohini flinched when he surged to his feet. Turning to no one in particular, he declared, 'I need some air. I'll be...'

  He didn't complete his sentence. A few seconds later there was a clanging of the main gate, and then nothing.

  The three people left behind in the garden looked at each other in stunned silence. Then Ritvik smote his forehead and groaned. 'His father! There was something he'd said once ... about how his father used to ... God! What a thing to be discussing in front of him; he clearly still has issues.'

  Thirteen

  Tiny pebbles and nasty, thorny twigs stabbed at his feet but Aalok kept walking. Not very clever of him taking off in slippers, but he'd felt suffocated.

  He'd needed to be alone. Fortunately for him, the cobbled village streets were deserted. It was late afternoon and only the occasional dog was about. The mongrels sniffed at him out of curiosity or hunger, he didn't know which, then they gave up in disgust when he had nothing to offer.

  Aalok snorted at the brutal truth of it. He really had nothing to offer. Not a thing. Nothing for the dogs; nothing for anybody.

  And there was nothing he wanted for himself, either.

  He had everything he needed. His camera, his independence, his sanity.

  And his family - his mum, his sisters, and his little niece, Anahita - he had them for when things got a little out of hand. Like now - with all the craziness induced by this ill-conceived move to the countryside.

  Whoever had coined the term 'simple country life' should have been shot for such a blatant falsehood. This was Aalok's first exposure to country living, and he'd had enough of it. It had been anything but simple.

  A vision flashed before his eyes - dark, silken, tangled hair, sultry eyes, and a body that seemed to fit perfectly into the contours and hollows of his own. His lips tightened and his pace quickened.

  Damn it! What the hell was happening? He was past master at playing the field. Not callously, as some did, because he let the ladies make the first move. And he took pains to make sure they knew there would be no forever. When he said goodbye, it was with finesse and finality. Nobody got hurt.

  Surely he'd followed the rules with Mohini?

  He'd flirted because that's what he did - she had responded readily enough and, if he remembered correctly, she'd taken the lead on more than one occasion.

  All good so far. The next step was to gracefully bow out like he always did, except that he seemed to have lost the narrative.

  Lost. He stopped to look about him and saw nothing but fields of golden yellow reaching all the way to the horizon - wheat, if he knew anything about his crops, on both sides of the road.

  How far had he walked? What time was it? Where the heck was he?

  There were people about now. Tired, hard-working men and women heading back, he presumed, from working in the fields. Drooping children done with play.

  Homeward bound.

  Aalok shook off the gloom. He wanted home, too. He wanted his normal restored.

  Tina and Ritvik's breakup hadn't thrilled him but it hadn't disturbed him either. Their getting together again had been a relief if only because it had sweetened Tina up and had made her bearable.

  What had taken it out of him was the reason for their breakup. The god-awful details that Tina had recounted with such enthusiasm had torn through the invisible scabs that covered ancient pain. He had been cast back into the violence that had marred his childhood.

  He thought he was stronger than that after the years of therapy, but remembered shrieks and sobs had rung in his ears again - his mother’s – and he had run.

  There was no running away. He had learned that inconvenient truth long ago. Aalok turned about on his heels and followed the road back. His feet ached. A blister on his big toe throbbed. Gritting his teeth, he plodded on.

  The blister would heal. What worried him was whether he ever would.

  The gloom threatened to return and he broke into a run.

  The sun slunk lower in the sky and Aalok made himself a promise as a cooling breeze blew over sweat-dampened skin. Tomorrow, well before the sun set on him again, he would be back home.

  §§§

  Mohini heard the gate clang and wondered if it was Aalok returning from the village. It wasn’t. A vaguely familiar, disheveled figure shuffled in and teetered to a stop a short distance from where she worked.

  She put down the watering can and took off her gardening gloves.

  'What do you want this time, Shamsher Singh? I am not lending you any money.'

  Mohini, dismayed at the dark look she got from the unrepentant alcoholic, moved so that a large earthen pot, housing a prickly pear cactus, lay between her and the menacing man.

  Swaying alarmingly, Shamsher wagged a finger at her and cussed in chaste Punjabi. 'I don't want your filthy money,' he screamed, swearing some more. 'Just leave my wife alone. She won't be coming here and slaving for you from tomorrow.'

  'Hold it ... just a minute! Raji comes here of her own free will. And she wouldn't have to slave so hard if you helped to ...'

  She was interrupted by a barrage of barely intelligible insults and threats directed at her, at her forefathers, and at her progeny. Her face turned red but she refused to cow down. She was vulnerable being alone in the big house, but she'd faced him down before and she could again.

  Provided that he didn't get physical. He looked incapable of that in his present wobbly state, but he was a large man and it would be wise not to let him reach a point where he chose to hurt her.

  They were standing right near the kitchen, at least a hundred feet from the main gate. Mohini had no idea how to get him to leave. She could turn placatory and appeal to his sense of goodness, or perhaps make a quick dash into the kitchen to grab a cleaver...

  The choice was taken out of her hands when another large figure joined the circus. Aalok, his face as dark as a thunder cloud, launched himself at Shamsher Singh and cut him off mid-threat. Grabbing the apoplectic drunk by his collar, Aalok dragged him to the gate and literally kicked him out.

  Lurching to his feet with some difficulty, Shamsher Singh, apparently unfazed, screamed profanities and clattered off a list of awful things he would do to them. When Aalok made a menacing move toward him, however, he scrambled off as fast as his floundering legs would allow.

  Only after the accursed man had turned the corner did Aalok secure the main gate. Mohini, though relieved to see the back of Shamsher Singh, was a little numb with shock.

  Aalok had been co
ld and ruthless in his dealing with the drunk - icy cold. The display of glacial anger, the hint of violence in his controlled eviction of the man - it gave her the shivers. This was a side of Aalok that made her very uncomfortable.

  At any other time he would have moved to her side, maybe even pulled her into a hug to comfort her, but not this Aalok. He had changed into a frigid stranger. His curt 'what was that all about?' was uttered from six feet away and a hardness entered Mohini's heart.

  'That was nothing I couldn't handle,' she snapped. 'I was about to get rid of him.'

  'How? By bludgeoning him to death with your puny fists?'