How About a Sin Tonight?

by Novoneel Chakraborty

  As the actors assembled on the set, Reva tried not to look at either Kaash or Shahraan. The latter sat across her. No words, no emotions. As Arunodaye said action, everything went smoothly till Kaash spilled the drink on Reva’s dress as per the script.

  ‘Oh, shit!’ Reva, in character, blurted standing up. Shahraan too stood up, but instead of slapping Kaash, he placed a tight slap on Reva’s supple cheek. There was an instant collective sigh from the crew, followed by pin drop silence.

  BOOK TWO: 2012

  CRIES OF A SIN

  In the otherwise quiet and dark room, her abrupt laughter had a satanic echo. Lying beside Neev at five in the morning, she wasn’t sure what gave her a better orgasm—Neev or the news Vikrant gave her. The slap, she knew, was only an ember. The real arson was only a matter of time now. From the moment she was given the opportunity to appear in the film by Shahraan himself, she was determined to turn this movie into Shahraan Ali Bakshi’s swan song. An ugly, dirty swan song beyond which there would only be doom to sleep with for him. Oh! Was she waiting for this film to start!

  ‘What happened?’ Neev woke up with a clouded mind. He thought he’d heard her laugh.

  ‘Vikrant called. Shahraan slapped Reva on set.’

  ‘What the fuck!’ Neev sat up rubbing his eyes. He seemed thoughtful for a while and then relaxed saying, ‘Finally, she got what she deserved. Only it should have been me slapping her.’

  Nishani’s face scrunched up as if the genre of his mind had suddenly changed. Neev stepped down from the bed and pulled up his Cocksox briefs.

  ‘Where is my phone?’

  ‘Bathroom. Probably.’

  It had been a year and a half since they’d moved in together. But for the media and public, they had two different flats. The producer had requested them to keep their personal life incognito and pretend as if they were a replica of their prime time appearance where they played a traditional Indian couple who preferred heart to hormones, for whom even one kiss before marriage was a cardinal sin. Image management was the name of the game. Unreal reality always hooked the audience.

  Neev came out of the bathroom, laughing. He was gawking at his mobile phone. It seemed the ghost of mirth had left Nishani and possessed him. Nishani shrugged.

  ‘Beat this—after avoiding me for several months, Mrs Reva Shahraan Ali Bakshi at this obnoxious hour gives me a total of five missed calls.’ He threw the phone on the bed for Nishani to check and added, ‘It’s my time to bite back.’ He went inside the bathroom again.

  Nishani saw the missed calls and wondered: Reva, all this while, was perhaps trying to be a perfect wife in front of Shahraan, but to accept him, she had to reject her past and perhaps her true self as well. The same self that made her call Neev after such a long gap. It only meant a part in her still longed for him. That was good news as far as Nishani was concerned. She didn’t care about what happened between Kaash and Reva. She was only interested in the perceived truth: that they did each other. She was hoping the fact distanced Shahraan from Reva and going by the missed calls, she could safely conclude that’s what has happened.

  If right now she was Reva, Nishani further wondered, she would need some serious emotional solace. And what better than to call one person who had always been with her. But for her plan to work, Neev had to be sympathetic.

  ‘Why did Shahraan allow Reva to do the nude scene with Kaash anyway?’ Nishani picked herself up, wrapped the bed sheet around her bosom, and went to the refrigerator.

  ‘He was being professional. And who knows, perhaps Reva chose to do it. Do you seriously think Shahraan knew about their past?’ Neev was relieving himself in the toilet. ‘Or for that matter anybody? Even I came to know about them after Kaash told you they have been fuck buddies or whatever.’ A pause later he said, ‘To hell with her.’

  Nishani grabbed a beer from the refrigerator and ensconced herself on the ‘Bombay Fornicator’ chair beside the bed.

  ‘I think you should call her back.’

  ‘What the fuck do you mean?’

  ‘I mean she is the reason why you are doing this film.’

  ‘Cut the crap.’ As he came out of the toilet, he was surprised to find a beer can thrown at him. He caught it alright.

  ‘Both of us are in that sonofabtich’s movie because he is one of the producers and he wanted to cash in on our television popularity. That’s all.’

  ‘One word from Reva and you would have still been licking the small screen.’ Nishani saw Neev take a large gulp from the can. He knew she had a point.

  ‘Now is the time for you to give her a shoulder. It’s always handy if one can have the hen-that-lays-golden-eggs as a pet. I am smart enough to gauge what I’m saying.’ Nishani said noticing Neev’s facial contours. She knew he would say yes. Neev was an emotional fool after all. And Reva Gupta was his greatest foolishness.

  Neev leaned against the bathroom door, sipping his beer and trying to understand Reva’s predicament. He never accused her of any infidelity when he learnt she was in a sexual relationship with Kaash while they were living together. The reason was simple: he too was guilty of it. And the whole world maybe gender biased when it came to infidelity but Neev wasn’t. But should I really call her back? he wondered. Reva went to Shahraan for her need and now was hoping to get to him again for her own selfish need, then why couldn’t he once again become hers to secure his own tight ass? Need! It’s not a mere noun in a dictionary. It’s a fucking law of nature.

  ‘You’re right.’

  Nishani looked at him.

  ‘I’ll call Reva.’

  Like a train approaching a station from afar, a smile finally arrived on her face. Nishani gestured with her finger for him to come near her. He did. She poured the remaining beer on her slender feet and started rubbing it on his face slowly.

  Reva was in Mehfil Mansion—the sea-facing bungalow in Bandra where she lived with Shahraan. The slap incident had rocked her to the core. It wasn’t the first time she had been hit by a man. She’d had her share of violent relationships, be it with Amjad or Neev, but with Shahraan it was different. She never associated him with violence. The worst was, she knew she deserved it.

  She was always the woman the world feared and accused of social blasphemy for the silliest reasons because she was a woman with the instinct of a man—uncontrolled and rudely impulsive. Had Shahraan done the same, he would have had the courage to come up to her and demand forgiveness. She was not even entitled to such audacity. And what was Shahraan doing anyway? The two-year long courtship with him could have been a dream for any average Indian woman, but for her it was an inauspicious premonition.

  Instead of respecting her individuality, he used her as an emotional bridge to connect to his feelings for Mehfil and give them a more materialistic vent. That was his sin. Reva never complained. This was her sin. By accepting Shahraan, she had jumped right at the top of the food chain in the industry from where she could swallow whoever she wanted to, but there wasn’t anyone to swallow her except for her own incorrigible instincts. One such instinct led her to the momentary loosening of her senses with Kaash. Human beings are dangerous she now knew; one temporary slip, one permanent guilt scar.

  It was a pack up right after Shahraan left the shoot without completing the scene. Nobody knew where he went. When he wasn’t home after two in the night, she asked Krishna to inform Shahraan if he wasn’t home soon, she would pack and move out to a hotel without caring much about any subsequent media hoopla. An hour and half later, Shahraan turned up at Mehfil Mansion.

  ‘Avoiding me won’t solve the problem,’ she almost screamed.

  Shahraan could tell she had been crying all the while.

  ‘I need time.’

  ‘Why do you think I didn’t come up to you all this week? I gave you time. And today, in front of everyone you…’ Her voice trailed off as she started whimpering.

  Shahraan threw an icy glance at her and sauntered across the hall room to the lavish bar at the othe
r end. Reva was expecting an apology, since he came across as a guy who won’t like a woman crying.

  ‘Don’t worry. No newspaper will carry this news. Krishna has made sure of it.’

  ‘I don’t care. I don’t smile, cry, or sleep with the world. I want to know what your heart thinks, Shahraan.’

  All Reva got was humiliating indifference as Shahraan continued making a drink. Rubbing the tears off her cheeks, she charged towards him and snatched the bottle.

  ‘The doctor has asked you not to drink.’ She held on to the bottle while Shahraan, as a reflex, tried to snatch it back and in the process it fell. The sound made her miss a heartbeat.

  ‘I don’t give a rat’s ass about who you sleep with. I have been in love all my life with someone who did just that as a profession.’ Shahraan hollered. ‘What really hurt me was that you didn’t anticipate what your act would do to me. Just the sound of it makes me feel like a loser from here.’ He beat at his chest hard. ‘And if you did anticipate it and still went ahead, then I don’t know what we are doing living under one roof and eating into each other’s life.’

  ‘Kaash and I didn’t do anything that day. Believe me!’ Reva was surprised at how naturally the lies came out and how genuine she sounded. ‘Only the words of the script were followed. And I sincerely don’t know how this insane conclusion was drawn by the media.’

  ‘Stop lying. Krishna overheard some spot boys talking about how the fresh paint of the room was blotched after the shot.’

  Reva felt choked by her conscience. Even if one lies for the good of a relationship, it’s always tough. She managed to stand her ground though, observing Shahraan who agitatedly put his hand in his trouser pocket and took out something. He threw it at Reva and said, ‘Try finding an excuse for this as well.’ He walked off. As she looked down at the I-pill paper box, she knew it was the same she had asked her girl Friday Geeta to bring on the fateful day. That means Shahraan must have had her bag searched. Her breathing went berserk. A sudden rise of anger took care of her inertia. She took a step and her foot landed on two sharp pieces of glass. She didn’t feel anything. With her left foot leaving blood marks on the otherwise crystal clear floor, she arrived at the stairs which took her to the room on the mezzanine floor. It was the smallest room of the house. It had a mirror for a wall on one side and a big coral curtain on the other. There wasn’t any furniture at all except for a large-sized canvas stand and the associated paraphernalia for painting. The room catered to Shahraan’s emotional rants: he painted there.

  He had stripped off his shirt and had his trousers rolled up till his knees. His hands were coloured with paint which, kneeling down, he was smudging rhythmically onto the large empty canvas in front. There was a threatening demeanor about him. Reva still came and stood right in front of him.

  ‘So from now on, I’ll have to live with a husband who will frisk me emotionally by going through my stuff secretly.’

  Shahraan didn’t respond. To secure his attention, Reva kicked the canvas. Shahraan stood up glaring at her. For a second Reva thought she actually kicked her good luck right in the groin.

  ‘I’m sorry for whatever unpleasant things you had to go through for me, but I never thought you could come down to this.’ The words came out like water does from a municipality tap; in a series of drops.

  Shahraan’s piercing eyes were enough to make her body shudder. For some time nothing happened and then he pushed her into the nearby wall. Her back hit the switchboard and the lights in the room went off. In the darkness, she felt his hands on her face. She could smell the paint. She fidgeted, her back hit the switch again, and the lights came on. She could see herself in the opposite mirror. Her face now was dripping with red paint. Reva was too numb to even understand why he did that. She saw his hands grab her gown in the middle, she flinched, and darkness descended once again. The gown was torn. Her breasts suffered a hard squeeze for once. Switch on. The breasts and the now loose bra cupping it, the mirror told her, now donned green paint. Shahraan flipped her with an authority that told her she was his Pygmalion. He tore the remaining dress from behind, pinning her hands to the wall. Retaliation wasn’t a friend anymore. A second later, Reva’s back was wet with black paint. Before she could utter a word, Shahraan flipped her once again and slapping her butt fiercely, moved his hands down her outer thighs to her feet. She glanced at her reflection—she was blue from waist down. He stood up and rubbed his dick on her navel, squeezing the slight flab hard. She felt both aroused and disgusted. Shahraan was heaving when he smiled at her in a way a man on his death bed would, realizing life’s a joke.

  ‘Doesn’t matter how many colours I bathe you in,’ he said, ‘you can’t be Mehfil.’ Shahraan left the room. If he had spit on her, she wouldn’t have felt as humiliated as those words made her feel. All she could do was drop to the floor and cry her heart out.

  ‘I am Reva Gupta. The icon. I don’t want to be anybody else’ was all her acutely choked self could come up with.

  It took a proper hot water shower to get rid of the colours. Feeling helpless and fighting a desperate urge to connect to someone who would not judge her in any way, she called Neev several times. But nobody answered.

  ‘Oh no, I won’t be able to do it. Please let me down. I have vertigo,’ Aravali earnestly requested as Kaash made her stand on the cemented barricade fencing the terrace of the twenty-first floor apartment where he lived.

  She tried her best not to look down, but her fear was an antagonist. Kaash helped her walk the entire square barricade of the sprawling terrace after which she jumped down and hugged Kaash tight, allowing her heart to calm down.

  From the last few days, Aravali was complaining of life being a bore. Tonight, Kaash was free to prove her otherwise.

  ‘Whenever life seems boring, give death a chance,’ he had told her and brought her up on the terrace for demonstration.

  ‘I did it!’ she said. Her skin was cold. ‘Thank you, my thought star!’ she added kissing his cheek.

  It was supposed to be a one-night stand to start with. But after reading the ‘Dear Nish’ letters clandestinely, Aravali had viscerally felt compelled to invest her life in a man who had that rare space in his heart intact, where once upon of a time men of valour kept their women and men of today keep chauvinism. The impact of those letters was such that she too wanted someone to treasure her the way he had treasured Nishani Rai. Aravali was twenty-nine and he was twenty-three and yet whenever they met, he was twenty-nine and she, perhaps sixteen.

  ‘Let’s climb up there.’

  She saw the solitary water tank standing at a greater height from the terrace. There was an iron ladder from the terrace to the tank for cleaners to reach.

  Kaash climbed first and positioned himself looking down.

  ‘Come on.’

  She closed her eyes and climbed those iron steps one by one. The turbulent air that hit her brought back her fear, but she somehow didn’t entertain it. Soon she joined him on the tank which had a small iron lid in the centre but sufficient space around for two people to lie down. When they lay down side by side, all they could see was the star-studded sky above and a blinking light of an aeroplane afar. While all they could hear was each other’s breathing.

  ‘I love you,’ said Aravali gazing at the sky.

  Kaash glanced at her once and then at the sky again.

  ‘Though I know you love Nishani,’ she now completed.

  ‘Who told you that?’ For the first time, Aravali felt a sense of intrigue in Kaash. In the last two years, that night was the first time she mentioned Nishani to him.

  ‘I’ll tell you everything, but first tell me did you know Reva would fuck you that day?’

  ‘Reva didn’t fuck me. We fucked each other. We always were strangers who met to fuck. And we fucked to meet again.’

  ‘You guys never talked or felt like knowing each other?’

  Kaash shook his head.

  ‘Unbelievable!’

  ‘Hence tr
ue. The calm that you like about me exists because I have someone to take care of my inner chaos.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I was nineteen when I first realized there’s an inherent chaos in everyone which becomes an indomitable energy at some point of time. It makes people do things which they wouldn’t do otherwise. More often than not this energy takes a sexual expression. And strangely enough, every time Reva and I met and unleashed ourselves, I felt relieved of the energy. Temporarily but certainly.’

  ‘How did you guys meet?’

  ‘In a pub. Sometimes she asked for it. Many a times I did.’

  ‘You could have got a girlfriend for yourself and could do the same thing. Perhaps without any guilt.’

  ‘Who said I’m guilty about it? That’s for the emotional jingoists.’

  ‘Still…’

  ‘Are you my girlfriend?’

  Aravali was quick to take out her mobile phone and check the calendar in it. She said, ‘Two years, three months and nine days have passed since we spent that one night together in Cyanide. After which, neither you found anyone nor did I. So, yeah, I would like to believe I’m your girlfriend.’ The last part was said with a sense of amusement.

  ‘Do we always have sex when we meet?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘That’s my answer. I can’t always have sex with my girlfriend.’

  ‘Do you want to?’

  ‘Again, that’s your answer. I neither can nor want to have sex all the time with my girlfriend.’

  ‘Are you suggesting every man needs a whore in order to attain an emotional equilibrium with his wife?’

  ‘I believe in individualism. Hence generalization is a sin for me. All I am saying is I, as an individual, have found a way to lessen the chaos in my life. Doesn’t everyone have the fundamental right to find a way to remain at peace with oneself? And isn’t life about this relentless struggle to reduce the chaos within? Some do so by chasing the elusive spiritual goals, I do so by living my sexual dreams.’