I spun around but there were so many people, so many faces. I tried to find the face that scared him. Was it the man lurking behind the corner? Or the old woman running behind her grandkids? There were so many faces. How the hell was I going to find the face that scared him?
“Hey what are you two doing here?”
“Sakshi?” I almost jumped when she tapped my shoulder. Where had she come from? Wasn’t she on a leave today?
“My parents have come to visit me, so I just thought of taking them out today.” She pointed her fingers to her parents who were eating pav bhaji at a stall.
“Oh, this is nice place. Isn’t it?” I was getting geared up for a little chat, but Samar interrupted. “We have to leave.” He didn’t wait for my response and rushed to his car.
His whole demeanour had changed. The carefree man whose glimpse I had seen twice today was gone and back was the Samar who was distant. Detached. But why were his hands shivering as he drove?
What did he see?
Or whom did he see?
Could it be Sakshi that he was scared off?
Of course not. What was I thinking?
17. The Dark R
oom
…Now
Tia knows she is alone in the room. Her senses have heightened. Every time she wakes up from her unconscious state she instantly knows if she is alone or if the captor is there with her. Maybe it’s the shallow breathing or maybe it’s the known perfume that fills the room, but millions of people use the same perfume in this world. And she would know if the captor was him. Wouldn’t she?
Her throat is dry, and she is tired of shouting for help, she is drained after banging the door with her back for so long. Her shoulders have begun to ache since her hands are tied behind her back. She had endlessly tried to convince her captor to at least tie her hands in front, but without success. The last time she repeated the request a loud slap had stunned her, she never tried after that.
Just Once…Tia wants to see her captor. What does that monster look like? Scary? Or attractive? Is that monster a stranger or a friend whose mask has withered? But how can a stranger know all of her favourite food? It’s a known demon, but is the demon someone who she just knew or someone she trusted? That thought pushes her into a bottomless abyss.
“I need help.” Her voice is almost a whisper now; she knows she is far out of the reach of her loved ones. Nobody can reach her here.
Not even their prayers?
She hasn’t stopped trying to free her hands, but her hope has weakened. Her hands are tied with chains, leaving only the scope for using the washroom, that too with great difficulty. She can by no means open the knot of her blindfold that is tightened too frequently by her captor. Her shoulder has started aching a lot with the vain trials. And then most of the time she is under the effect of drugs that keep her in daze too inefficient to do anything.
Once again, she tries to rub the chains against the edge of the bed, but in vain she just scratches her skin deeper and deeper.
She needs to do something to keep her sanity, she needs to do anything. She has already measured the length and breadth of the room with her feet. She knows there is one other locked door in the room. She crawls on her bed and measures it with her hands.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven.
The bed is small, but enough for one person. Her captor hasn’t slept with her. Yet. She shudders at the thought.
And then she hears it…
The dreaded three ticks on the lock…
The arrival of her captor…
The shallow breathing and the known perfume comes closer and closer and she cringes in the corner of the bed, shrinks in a ball. The aura of her captor confuses her; it’s unknown and yet strangely familiar. The leather gloved jacked pulls her up by her hairs and then pushes her head down for a liquid diet. Tia gulps it down in a minute.
Once the shock had settled, she was hungry all the time. Her meals came far off in time and meagre in quantity.
Once her stomach is fed, the bare minimum to keep her alive, she again tries to fight her captor, but the gloved hands come around her throat and squeezes…she struggles to breathe, and drifts further away from the world with every other second until her face turns purple and her hands dangle on either side and once she stops fighting back the familiar prick that stings her arm. And once again she begins drifting into the oblivion, the unknown place she had begun to love. It was better than the humiliation.
Vaguely she hears the music in the background. This time it is the voice of a little boy.
"My lonely world wants only you,
My heart and soul seek only you,
You imprisoned me,
How can I set you free?"
When she gets back to her senses, she smells good. But this time her dress is too revealing. A low-neck T-shirt and a mini skirt. She feels exposed and pulls her knees to her chest and tries to cover herself, but somehow she knows her captor has left.
The known perfume isn’t lingering in the air anymore.
18. Samar
Then…
I was hallucinating again, like every other time I tried to move on, every other time I tried to rid myself of the clutches of past.
Why did I even try when I knew I was forever a prisoner of my past?
Tia… yes, she was the reason.
She was unaware of the power she had over men; she was unaware she could make them dance to her tunes. Damn, even her innocence was seductive. Just an innocent smile of her crumbled the steely walls of my indifference. Her laughter was contagious, it had penetrated the rigid layers of the numbness that had covered me since…no…I didn’t want to go there.
And why the hell did this fierce desire to protect her rule my mind? She didn’t seem too scared of the stalker; she didn’t’ know that monsters roam amid normal people hiding a knife beneath sweet smiles.
She must have learned to differentiate.
And I must have learned to keep my walls up when I was with her.
19. Tia
I was returning home after my morning walk. The sun was already on its ‘earth burning’ mission, but thankfully it was blocked by the 9-storey building on the opposite road of my home. Drenched in sweat, I wanted to get inside the shower immediately, but when I saw a lorry being unloaded across the road, I stopped. A girl approximately my age made payment to the driver and walked towards the building.
“Hey there.” I called out.
She turned back and looked at me from head to toe silently. I thought she wasn’t going to reply but then she said in a stern voice. “Yes?” Dusky beauty is how I would define her in one word, the tight fitted jeans did perfect justice to her hourglass figure. Her straight shoulder length hairs were dark and lustrous.
“I am Tia, I live there.” I pointed to our home across the road. We lived in a duplex and just across the road was this nine-storey building. “Welcome to our society.”
“Thanks.” She said and turned around to walk inside the building without introducing herself.
“And you are?” I asked shamelessly.
She stopped in her tracks, I thought she wasn’t going to turn around to look at me, but then she did.
“Kiara,” she said and walked away without bothering to take the conversation any further, but when she slipped at the entrance of the building, I ran up to her and offered her my hand to get up.
“I don’t need any help,” she said rudely. Her hazel eyes adorned with Kohl were so expressive. The sadness in them was unmistakable. Why did it feel like she wasn’t talking about getting help for getting up, she was talking in general about not needing any help? God, my mind worked overtime sometimes.
She got up, dusted her jeans off, and started walking inside when I pretended to slip.
“Ouch.” I shouted demanding her attention. She turned around, clearly irritated.
“But I need help.” I smiled and forwarded my hand. I heard her mumble “urgh” under her breath before she g
ave me her hand to get up. But I was wrong when I expected a small chat from her, so I walked towards my home.
“Who’s the new tenant?” Mom asked from the kitchen as I entered home.
“I saw a girl my age.” I said opening the lace of my shoes.
“What about her parents?” Mom asked, surprised. Of course, she never needed to ask me anything, with my chatty nature I gave out more information than people could take.
“I don’t know. Couldn’t make her talk much.” I said as I put my shoes on the rack.
“Is it even possible for anyone to ignore you?” She walked towards me, wiping her hand on a towel.
“Mom, I am not a superstar.”
“I don’t mean that. I mean you will chatter until people notice you.” She teased me.
“Mom!!!” I almost sang those words in annoyance.
“Just kidding.” She smiled “I mean, seriously, they have just moved. We should ask them if they need help. Maybe you should take some tea and invite them for dinner.”
Soon I was at was Kiara’s doorstep with a thermos in my hand. She didn’t even try to mask her irritation when she saw me at the door.
“Yes?” She said rudely, not even opening the door fully, as if she was scared I might even rush in uninvited.
“Since you have just moved in, I thought some smoking hot tea might help you.” From the little space I could see, I could say the room was almost empty, just a few suitcases and a chair, nothing like I expected, like lots of furniture lying around haphazardly.
“Look Tia. Or whatever you said your name was.” My eyes followed her long slender fingers enamoured with purple nail paint as she rhythmically moved her hands with her words. “I really appreciate your concern. But I don’t need help. And I am not going to give you any material for gossip.”
“What?” I gulped and stopped watching her fingers, they had stopped dancing. If it had been a Bollywood movie, my thermos would have crashed on the ground, but it wasn’t a movie and my thermos was costly, so it didn’t. “This is what you think of our kindness. You know you are weird.” I turned around expecting a sorry or “wait, I didn’t mean that” but nothing came, and I returned home with a sullen face.
“What happened? You are back so early? I though you would bore them to death before returning home,” Mom teased me.
“Stop it mom. I am not that annoying. Ok? And that girl…she is a weirdo. I have to throw that fake lizard on her someday.”
“You know sometimes you behave like a 5-year-old.”
“Sometimes? I wish you said always.” I folded my hands with mock anger.
She just laughed at that.
But I wasn’t kidding when I said I would throw the fake lizard on her. I got it free with a chips packet and I had already overused it. I promised myself this would be the last time.
One day while she was passing by, I hid behind a tree and as soon as she passed from there, I threw the lizard on her.
A loud screamed filled the air and it didn’t stop, her eyes were shut tight and her hands up in the air in surrender. She didn’t even open her eyes or make any attempt to remove the lizard away from the sleeve of her body-hugging white round neck t-shirt where it got stuck. Wow…this was the best reaction I had ever received with this lizard. Not even Sakshi entertained me so much.
Laughing madly, I pulled off the lizard from her and finally when she opened her eyes, I hung the lizard in front of her eyes. But I couldn’t stop laughing yet.
“I just want to slap you!” She screamed, gritting her teeth. My laughter became trapped in my throat. “What do you think of yourself?” she pointed a trembling finger at me. “Haven’t your parents taught you anything?”
I expected to break the ice with her, but it went all wrong. Maybe I crossed my limits, so her getting mad at me was justified, but bringing my parents in the conversation was not okay.
“I am sure your parents taught you a lot, I just wish they taught you a sense of humour and to be polite to people. You might have some friends then.” No wonder I always saw her alone. I didn’t want to escalate it, so I turned around to leave, but her voice, drowned in anger, forced me to look at her.
“Oh ho, you people with lovely family and friends and time to gossip, don’t you dare try to teach me.” Her finger was again pointing at me. “I don’t have that kind of time and friends and family.” She bit her lips regretting her last words, but then continued. “Take it as a warning or a request. Stay away from me.” She barked and stormed away, but I couldn’t even move from my place.
I should have been mad at her, but I wasn’t. The way her lips trembled at the mention of family I could safely say she either didn’t have any or she wasn’t close with them. I really wanted to help but she didn’t want to be helped. Maybe she was living alone and didn’t want people to know for the sake of her safety, maybe that’s why she didn’t gel with people. So, moving forward, I decided to ignore her.
20. Tia
Samar messaged me in the morning that he would be late so I should go alone. I pulled out my car. After little coaxing from Samar, I was driving now. Devansh had to go to a client meeting and he was to join from there.
Midway to my office my phone rang from an unknown number.
“Hey little doll, I love you.” The shrill cold voice passed like a knife through my gut. “It isn’t nice to travel with men. Good girls don’t do that.” He continued with his steady pitched, ice cutting tone.
A chill ran through the length and breadth of my body. “Who? Who…who are you?” My phone was tight in the grip of both my hands when I actually wanted to throw it away.
“Call me your secret admirer or your lover. Call me whatever you want, but don’t tease me in my dreams, it’s time you come in my arms.”
“Shut up…just shut up!” I screamed at the top of my voice and disconnected the phone. The phone rang again, and its funny tone suddenly sounded dreadful to my ears. I immediately disconnected the phone, but my hands shivered so much that it took me three attempts to switch it off and finally the phone slipped from my trembling hands. I didn’t pick it up. Too scared to look around, I tried to stop my whimpering. But then I gathered courage from the last bit of my core and looked around. My heart thumped so loud that all the voices of the cars bypassing me drowned in it. I didn’t find any face hidden in the bushes, I didn’t find any car halted behind mine, I couldn’t see anything unusual around me. Where was he? Could he see me even when I couldn’t see him? The vibes from the phone suffocated me, I just wanted to throw it away but I knew that would have been foolish so I let it lie where it was and soon, I was driving at full speed, more than what I could handle. Scared of a creepy man following me, driving my car with shivering hands and horrified of smashing into some other car, I finally reached office.
All eyes were on me when I entered the office. What the hell? Was I that transparent? Or was it something else. Even before I settled on my seat someone tapped on my desk.
“Tia, see me right now.”
Samar? Wasn’t he going to be late?
“Where the hell is your phone?” Samar growled as soon as I entered his cabin. His hands reached my shoulders, but he stepped back before holding me. It didn’t take me more than a second to know something was horribly wrong.
“It’s switched…it’s battery died.” I lied “But…but…what happened?”
“Did you by mistake give your password or your login to anyone?”
“No, why?”
He walked to his desk and turned his laptop towards me and I almost stumbled back, thankful that the wall behind me didn’t let me fall. They were screen shots of my sent items. The subject line read ‘Confidential’ and the email address was of our competitor.
“No.” I couldn’t make it any more than a whisper. “I didn’t send them. Believe me Samar I didn’t send them.” I fought tears that were ready to spring out of my eyes.
He opened his mouth to say something, but his phone ringing distracted him.<
br />
“Did she come?” The voice on the other end of the phone was so loud that it was easily audible to me too. It was Mr. Mehta, CEO of the company who worked from the other office in Pune.
“Yes.” Samar said.
“What she has to say?”
“She just came in. Give me some time to talk to her.” He ran down his hand over his face. The tension on his face mirrored mine.
“I want her out of the office right now. Tell her to wait for a notice and a court hearing for fraud.”
My legs gave away at those words and finally I walked to the chair and sat down, though I knew soon I would be thrown out, but I needed something to hold on to in this moment.
“I will get back to you.” He disconnected the phone abruptly, most probably mid conversation and sat on the adjacent chair.
“Tia, this is serious.” He struggled to maintain distance but finally held my shoulders and bent a little to look at me in the eye. “Please try to remember if you gave your password to anyone.”
“No. I swear.” I pinched my neck like a little girl, trying hard not to cry.
“OK.” He pulled back his hand and sat up straight in his chair. “Go home. Just keep your phone handy. Ok wait! You said your phone was discharged. Charge it there for 15 minutes and wait in the reception area.” I nodded and walked out, feeling robbed of my dignity.
The 15 minutes at reception felt like an eternity, I didn’t dare look up from the floor, didn’t dare meet any eyes looking at me. Who sent those emails? How was it possible? Who would trust me? Was my career doomed?
Beyond Lies Page 5