Black Suits You

by Novoneel Chakraborty

  Kashti took two spare cartons and one of her empty suitcases before locking the main door behind herself. She went to Anaysha’s flat. Kiyan was watching through the peephole all the while, hoping Anaysha wouldn’t turn up till Kashti was out of the flat. It took Kashti close to thirty minutes to move all of Kiyan’s stuff out of the flat. She was about to drag the cartons away when Anaysha stepped out of the elevator.

  ‘Excuse me?’ she enquired, looking at the cartons and the suitcases first and then at Kashti.

  ‘Yeah?’ Kashti quipped with a I-don’t-take-shit-from-anyone attitude.

  ‘If you get into my flat, you have to ask me.’

  ‘But this house also belonged to your ex, who is my boyfriend now.’

  Kiyan could hear Kashti’s below-the-belt response from behind the door. He was in two minds about opening the door and asking Kashti to come in.

  ‘Your boyfriend doesn’t live here any more, so even he needs to take my permission before sending his pet here,’ Anaysha stated, holding Kashti’s gaze. A fight was on. Kashti kept the suitcase down and looked at Anaysha as if she would slap her. But she smiled in a mocking manner and said, ‘I don’t blame you. In fact, I feel pity for you. If someone had snatched my boyfriend, I too would have felt this way. The only difference is, nobody can take Kiyan away from me.’

  Anaysha was shaking with rage. She wanted to say so much and do so much but couldn’t because by then Kiyan had opened the door. He had realized this could turn uglier.

  ‘Let me help with the cartons,’ he said, and without looking at either of the girls, picked up one of the cartons and moved it into his new flat with his new partner. Once he had brought in the cartons and the suitcase, he tried to glance at Anaysha. She was already looking at him. Then she banged her main door shut.

  ‘I don’t think you should talk to her,’ Kiyan told Kashti as he locked their flat door himself.

  ‘I wasn’t. She was the one who initiated the conversation.’

  ‘Just ignore her,’ he said, knowing well he did so more out of concern for Anaysha than Kashti.

  ‘I’ll be more than happy to ignore her.’

  ‘Also, I think we should look for a different place to live,’ he said, opening the suitcase.

  ‘We will surely do that, but for the next four months we have to stay here. Dad has paid the rent in advance. I don’t think he would like it if I shift before that.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Kiyan murmured and kept his focus on the suitcase.

  Kashti realized his mood was slightly off. ‘Cheer up now,’ she said. ‘Our selfie fetched two thousand Likes and close to five hundred comments in half an hour.’

  Kiyan frowned. He snatched Kashti’s phone out of her hand and saw the selfie had been uploaded on his recently made Facebook profile. The caption of the selfie read:

  That cozy feeling when you wake up with your love . . .

  Kashti had tagged herself on the photograph. The excitement he had seen in Kashti at the Likes and comments disturbed him. And suddenly it dawned on him. Was Kashti trying to feed off his recently acquired fame? Was this entire hunt and game about that four letter word—fame?

  14

  Kashti had gone out for the day. With some time to think, Kiyan realized he had to move on from the success of his debut trilogy and start working on his next book soon since Natasha had already sent him the contract for it. He knew she had done it intentionally, to bind him to a time frame. He felt uncomfortable working in Kashti’s flat. It was too close for comfort to his old flat and brought up memories of when he sat on the bed with the laptop. So Kiyan decided to go to a nearby café and sit there to write.

  An author shouldn’t rue his or her messy life because it’s easy for them to come up with the plot for their next bestseller from that mess. Art often thrives in sadness, angst, anger and chaos. That’s why at the back of their minds, authors are always happy about their sadness. And sad when they’re happy for too long.

  While getting ready to go out, Kiyan kept glancing at the locked wardrobes. He hadn’t seen Kashti open them in his presence yet. All her clothes were kept in her bags and suitcases. And yet she told him she had moved in 6 months ago. Who doesn’t unpack for this long? Moreover, whenever she left the house, she would lock her bags and suitcases as well. He made a mental note to ask her about it. He was combing his hair in front of the mirror when his phone buzzed with a message from Kashti:

  What’s up, baby?

  Going to a cafe to write, he replied.

  Cool. Send me a selfie. My friends here don’t believe you are my boyfriend. ☺

  Kiyan wondered if his hunch was correct, if she was trying to extract mileage for herself. He stood in front of the mirror in his black T-shirt and clicked a selfie. He sent it to her. The response came immediately.

  Muaah. Thanks baby. Black suits you. Have a gorgeous day. See you in the evening.

  Kiyan took the spare keys, locked the door and was about to head to the elevator when he was shocked to see Anaysha lying by the main door of her flat. He glanced around but saw nobody. He quickly went to Anaysha, calling out her name, careful not to touch her. She was unconscious. He picked her up in his arms and went inside, placing her on the couch. He went to the kitchen to bring a bottle of water and splashed some water onto her face. Anaysha’s eyes opened slightly.

  ‘Anaysha,’ Kiyan said, caressing her forehead. The touch brought back a lot of old emotions. He moved his hand. She opened her eyes weakly and then sat up abruptly when she saw it was Kiyan in front of her.

  ‘What happened?’ she asked, surprised by his proximity.

  ‘I saw you lying by the door.’

  ‘Oh!’ she stood up and went to the kitchen. Kiyan could tell from her gait that everything wasn’t all right. He joined her in the kitchen as she drank a glass of water.

  ‘What happened, Anaysha?’

  What happened? Really? ‘Nothing.’ She tapped her fingers against the glass, not knowing what to say or think next. Kiyan kept looking at her.

  ‘I know I went away abruptly yesterday morning . . .’ he started but was cut short by Anaysha.

  ‘Not only yesterday morning, Kiyan.’ Her tone was acidic. Kiyan lowered his head avoiding eye contact.

  ‘Just leave,’ she said. Her hands were shaking now. His presence had the effect of lowering her self-esteem.

  ‘I wanted to tell you . . .’ Kiyan started but checked himself when he noticed a security guard at the open door. He rang the bell even though the door was ajar.

  ‘Yes?’ Anaysha said.

  ‘Kashti madam sent me to see if everything is okay with you, sir,’ the guard said.

  ‘What?’ It was so absurd that he didn’t understand what the guard meant. He glanced at Anaysha.

  ‘I told you. Just leave, Kiyan,’ she said and waited by the main door for him to get out. She locked the door behind him. The guard took the elevator down along with Kiyan. The moment he came out, he called Kashti up. She rejected the call and called him up two minutes later.

  ‘What’s this?’ he asked.

  ‘What’s what?’ was the reply.

  ‘Why did you send the guard up?’

  ‘I saw you leaving the flat but not the complex. I inquired, and the guard said the same. He too didn’t . . .’

  ‘Wait a minute. What do you mean by you saw me leave the flat?’

  There was silence.

  ‘Speak up, Kashti.’

  ‘I have cameras in my flat.’

  ‘What?’ Kiyan couldn’t keep the disbelief out of his voice.

  ‘I have a live feed on my phone. Don’t be angry. It’s because I want to see you all the time. I miss you a lot.’

  Kiyan kept quiet.

  ‘Kiyan, you there?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said and wondered about what she said. She installed hidden cameras because she misses him? Who does that sort of thing?

  ‘Message me from the cafe. You’re going there now, right?’ she asked.

  ‘Ri
ght.’

  There was a limit to possessiveness. And Kashti had reached it with her behaviour. Or so Kiyan thought.

  He sat at the Starbucks in Cyber Hub for a good five hours. And for all his effort, he had a blank page. He simply couldn’t focus. More so because he was trying to write his next story about a character based on Kashti. The real and fictitious worlds were colliding, and he ended up going over the book events, the gym in Bangalore, Sarafa in Indore and the beach in Goa. Initially, Kashti was a mystery he was eager to unveil, but now the same mystery was scaring him. Had it not been for the ‘gift’ she had given him it wouldn’t have led to this.

  Kiyan also couldn’t stop thinking about Anaysha lying on the floor like that. He kept staring at her number on his phone, debating whether he should call and ask her.

  As he was trying to gather courage, he heard someone say, ‘Hey Kiyan!’ It was his editor, Natasha.

  ‘Hey!’

  ‘What a surprise! Please tell me you are working on your next here.’

  Kiyan turned his laptop towards her and said, ‘Yeah, wrote a lot.’ Natasha noticed all that was written on the page was the word ‘PROLOGUE’.

  ‘Hmm, give me fifteen minutes. I have a quick meeting to finish. Then let’s sit over coffee,’ she said.

  ‘Sure, I’m here.’

  Natasha joined him twenty minutes later, carrying a Red Velvet Frappé.

  ‘So, what’s the problem?’ she asked, sitting opposite him.

  ‘I’m stuck.’ Only Kiyan knew he wasn’t talking about his writing.

  ‘It happens to every author, especially with the second project. But trust me, it’ll pass. You just need one instance of inspiration.’

  ‘And I’m that instance of inspiration for Kiyan.’

  Both Natasha and Kiyan turned around to see Kashti beaming at them. After a moment’s awkwardness, Kiyan stood up and introduced Kashti to Natasha as his girlfriend.

  ‘I saw your pictures on Kiyan’s profile and page.’ Natasha said, giving Kashti a one-shoulder hug. Kashti hugged Kiyan tightly once and took her seat.

  ‘What do you want to have?’ Natasha asked.

  ‘I already have what I want,’ Kashti said with a sly smile, holding Kiyan’s hand and squeezing it tightly.

  ‘Of course,’ Natasha said, letting it show on her face that she found the display of possession a little weird.

  ‘Anyway, I’ll order something to drink,’ Kashti said.

  ‘Let me,’ Kiyan said, but Kashti stopped him saying, ‘It’s okay, hon.’

  As Kashti went to the counter to order, Natasha turned to Kiyan and said, ‘She loves you a lot.’

  Kiyan didn’t miss the sarcasm ‘a lot’ was laced with. He nodded.

  ‘Where did you meet her?’

  ‘At a cousin’s wedding.’ He couldn’t bring himself to tell the truth.

  ‘And how long have you been in the relationship?’

  ‘A few months.’

  ‘Nice,’ Natasha said.

  Kiyan acknowledged the comment with a smile, knowing well what she was hinting at. Kashti joined them soon enough. They chatted about nothing in particular for some time, after which Natasha took her leave.

  ‘How did you know I was here?’ Kiyan asked Kashti right after waving at Natasha.

  ‘Someone told me.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘What’s this with your interrogation?’

  ‘Just answer me, Kashti.’

  ‘All right. A friend of mine spotted you here. I never told you, but all my friends have a crush on you. And they are jealous of me because they read your books and always keep fangirling while I have you for real.’ She had a condescending smirk on her face.

  ‘So a friend of yours spotted me here and told you about it, and you came here?’

  ‘To surprise you.’

  ‘I don’t like it, Kashti. This and the cameras.’

  ‘I told you I installed them so that I can see you every time I miss you. I can’t always ask you to click a selfie. Why are you getting so bothered about it?’

  ‘I don’t like to be watched. That’s all.’

  ‘That’s why I didn’t want to tell you about it. Okay I shall remove them, happy?’

  ‘Yeah, fine.’

  ‘Well, let me tell you something. One of your fans made a page for us,’ Kashti said.

  ‘Us?’

  ‘Yeah. Look.’ She showed him a Facebook page on her phone and said, ‘The fan made me the admin. How sweet, no? And guess what, we already have 5,000 Likes in a span of 9 hours. And just look at the posts they have put up. They want to see more of us. We are their dream couple.’

  Kiyan checked the posts as Kashti slowly scrolled down the page on her phone. Most of them were demands from readers to post more pictures and videos, and compliments about how perfect they looked together.

  ‘You have to look at our last kissing picture that I put up. The girls are getting jealous. I like that. It’s a kick you know, of the ultimate kind. The guy they fantasize about, I get to tie him up and savour him,’ she said with a smile. If he was the person who had obsessed about Kashti during the book tour, he would thought the smile was alluring, but now the smile made him think she was perhaps crazy.

  She closed the Facebook app on her phone and turned to Kiyan with a serious face.

  ‘Tell me, what were you doing at Anaysha’s flat in the morning?’

  ‘She was lying unconscious and . . .’

  ‘Give me your phone.’

  Kiyan gave her his phone. She blocked Anaysha on Whatsapp and then deleted her number from his contact list.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Don’t you get it, Kiyan? She is trying to win you back from me. What do you think, coming out in the morning when you are jogging and lying unconscious on the floor when you are about to leave the flat are coincidences? I’m a girl, and I know how girls are.’

  Kiyan was lost in thought.

  ‘But that’s not important. What’s important is whether you would let her win you back?’ she asked, looking deep into his eyes. The same way she had looked at him after she had given him the ‘gift’ in Goa.

  All Kiyan could do was nod slowly, which made Kashti give him a peck and say, ‘That’s like my baby.’

  15

  The first thing Kiyan did after they reached their flat was to remove all the hidden cameras with Kashti’s help. He was surprised by the number of them. There were ten in all—in the bedroom, drawing room, kitchen, washroom and balcony. The entire flat was under survelliance, and only Kashti had access to the live feed on her phone.

  ‘When did you install them?’

  ‘A day before your Indore launch.’

  The confidence with which she said it told Kiyan how easy all of it had been. If he wrote about this in his next book, readers would ask how an author could fall so easily for Kashti. But truth is always stranger than fiction.

  Though she promised him there were no more cameras in the flat, Kiyan wasn’t sure. Not that he had any option other than to believe her. The fact that he had sat for five hours straight at Starbucks earlier in the day but hadn’t written one word disturbed him deeply. He knew it couldn’t go on like this. He would have to submit the manuscript in the next five months and for that he would have to start immediately. And before starting, he had to take care of the reason he couldn’t focus. The reason was sleeping beside him in a white, semi-transparent, V-neck T-shirt that had ridden up her stomach while sleeping, with her tiny belly button showing. The outline of her nipples on her T-shirt told him she wasn’t wearing a bra. She was wearing no pants and had on a white panty. He gazed at her shapely legs and wondered what apart from her body was alluring to him. What else did he know about her? Her name. Her address. Her phone number. Her daily routine. Her parents were in the US. She had an elder sister. That’s it. A sinking feeling in his gut made Kiyan sit up in bed. He knew why he had chosen her over Anaysha. It was because of the ‘gift’ Kashti had given him i
n Goa. But he couldn’t live like this for ever. He glanced at her face. She wasn’t the kind of girl anyone could live with. She was way too dominating, too intrusive and too possessive. In fact, she was the opposite of Anaysha. For a moment, Kiyan felt like crying. He knew he shouldn’t have slipped up in the gym in Bangalore, or more importantly, at the beach in Goa. People give in to temptations not solely because of what they offer but also because of a larger reason that surfaces from within when the temptation comes along. If not with Kashti, he would have been tempted by someone else sooner or later. The problem was that this temptation called Kashti was a fatal one. Kiyan only wished he had known about it in time. Now it was too late. Or was it?

  Kiyan wanted to go over to Anaysha right at that moment, hug her tightly and apologize. But he knew he wouldn’t be able to. He closed his eyes and tried to focus. First things first—to get out of any trap, one has to first understand the trap in its totality. Kiyan recollected that Kashti had told him the user ID and password for the Facebook profile. He downloaded the Facebook app on his phone, and for the first time since college, logged on. The profile was in his name. He soon discovered that he was the admin for both his and Kashti’s fan page as well. Why exactly were people her fan? Because she was his girlfriend? Kiyan Roy’s girlfriend! He couldn’t help but smirk. He soon found Kashti’s profile too in his friend list. The profile picture was of her in the same clothes she had worn at the lounge in Pune.

  Kiyan looked through her friends to try to find more information. He noticed there were 857 people in her friends list, but none of them seemed like they might be her friend. For one, they were all middle-aged, weird-looking males. Secondly, none of the ten pictures she had uploaded had any comment from a female. The Likes, shares and comments were all by lecherous-looking males. Was that normal? Though he wasn’t familiar with social media he knew it was a medium to connect with friends, keep track of what was happening in their lives and let them know about your own. He typed Anaysha Gupta in the search bar. However, no search result showed up. Anaysha wasn’t very social media friendly, like him, though she did have a profile. As he lifted his head up from the phone, wondering how else he could know more about Kashti without making it obvious to her, his eyes fell on the locked wardrobe.