Viki looked like Sam had struck him, mottled and bruised. But his eyes were hard. They glowed, too. Like diamond chips. “Then try acting like it! But that is too much for you, na? Jab tum mardh nahin ho saktha? When you can’t even be a man?”
It was exactly the right button to push. Even from the start they had known how to hit hardest with each other. Sam launched himself at Viki, enraged. He got a few good shots in…only because Viki let him. The man was hewn from solid rock. So goddamn unbreakable. When he grew tired of being abused, Vikram grabbed his wrists in one hand. With his other, he grasped Sam’s jaw. “Enough. Bas. Ho chuke.”
No. It was not enough. It couldn’t be. Sam heard the cry of rage tear from his throat before he’d even consciously decided to scream. He was kissing Viki before he’d even accepted that his fury and his lust were the same thing. They stumbled back against the wall, attacking each other’s mouths in an evenly matched battle.
This was the last time, the last goddamn time. Sam was never going to let Vikram Malhotra direct his life again.
Chapter Twelve
Chandu scouts the terrain, sensing that everything is about to change. Not just for the country, but for all those he holds dear. A “freedom fighter” he calls himself…but it is not freedom he fights for. Nahin, he fights for his brothers. His sisters. His Mother India.
There is not anything he would not do for Varun and Alok, for the cause. Chandu has patriotism for blood, loyalty for marrow. He stares over the ridge at the small British encampment. At the soldiers the ever-so-honorable Mr. Austin did not tell the local zaminder and his sweet daughter about. Sepoys, they’re called, because the firengis cannot say “sipahi”.
They bastardize Bharat’s tongues just as they do her peoples and her lands. Chandu swallows bile and draws up on his horse’s reins. Across the ridge is chaos. He can feel it in his blood, in his marrow…and in his soul.
They were staring at him. Sam could feel four sets of eyes taking measure of him from across the courtyard, and he had to fight to breathe, to remain still, instead of twitching like he was in desperate need of another smoke. His outburst had panicked the whole crew. In retrospect, some hours later, he would recognize it hadn’t been wise to go off on Joshi in front of everyone. In fact, just how unwise was being outlined to him yet again by Rahul Anand. “Sam, you know our terms, yeah? You must be one hundred percent sober on this set.”
One hundred percent sober. A few years ago, it would have been a foreign concept, like, “Sam, you must now be a French poodle; come let us put a pink bow in your hair.” But today, tomorrow, and the day after, it was his life. He said as much to Rahul, who looked relieved but not entirely convinced.
“Okay. Okay, yaar. As long as you are sure.”
“I am. I have to be.” He smiled, attempting for friendly but knowing what he achieved was actually “mildly sinister”. The curse of not having a beautiful face.
Rahul squeezed his arm, his expression boyish and open…but not so innocent that he reminded Sam of Jai. There was still hardness in Rahul’s dark eyes, and a firm note of business in his voice. “Don’t worry, Sam. We are here for you.”
The producer was a friend, sort of. The entire reason he’d been given this chance. They’d been at the same boarding school together some twenty years ago, and Sam was actually grateful that Rahul had been three or four classes behind. He’d missed out on being part of Sam’s crew…smoking up and partying every chance they got…and had actually made something of himself as a result.
Sam glanced back across the yard, this time catching the gazes of his costars outright. Trishna Chaudhury, Avinash Kumar, Michael Gill and Harsh Mathur. He didn’t look away. This was his chance to make something of himself, and he was not going to blow it.
After his initial establishing shots, production shut down for three days due to the rain. Sam couldn’t stand the sound of the downpour. It drowned out everything else: the buzzing of the mosquitoes, the music from his iPod and even his own thoughts. The rest of the principal cast seemed happy to be exiled to their rooms. More than happy, he’d realized, since his suite was right next to Michael Gill’s, and the walls weren’t exactly thick.
Shit. That was all he needed, man. To have a front-row seat for someone else’s love story, when his leading man was probably checking in at the front desk. Nahin, no, not his leading man. His fucking nemesis, the khalnayak in the epic picture that was his life.
Sam’s hands trembled as he lit his cigarette, and he heard Jai’s voice in his head, warning him that one bad thing would just lead to another. That was the last thing his son had said to him the day he checked out of rehab…staring up at him with those big, dark eyes that were just like his mother’s. “Papa, you shouldn’t smoke. One bad thing will just lead to another.”
At fourteen, Jaidev was better than any overpriced counselor telling him that smoking was a short walk to hash and a donkey cart ride down the rocky path back to coke. Jai was handsome and smart and responsible and so ahead of him. He was the best thing in his life, the only bright spot of that self-deluding period in Sam’s early twenties when he’d fucked every woman he met in the hopes that it would make him quit wanting men.
He’d been married to Sunita for a hot minute, just long enough to repair his reputation and his career, and give his son a last name. Most of the time he figured he hadn’t done Jaidev any favors. He would have been better off without Sam as a father. But Sam would’ve been a mess without a son…dead at twenty-one or twenty-five or thirty, instead of on his fifth chance at redemption at the ripe old age of thirty-four.
One bad thing will just lead to another.
Jai couldn’t know how right he was. One bad choice after another had led Sam right back to Vikram. Viki was the drug he’d never kicked.
But he wasn’t going to screw this up. He couldn’t. He’d only had a handful of offers since he left the center, and Joshi had not only given him this role…but given him a role that wasn’t a negative one. For the first time in a long time, he wasn’t a villain. He was a good guy. Sam was determined to live up to it.
Trishna had thought living with one man was challenging. That was before she’d suddenly become the sidekick to three of them, and she began feeling more like Draupadi from The Mahabharata, with her five husbands and thousand headaches. As she sorted through a few of her saris, bent on choosing one for a dinner with Rahul and a few of his producer cronies, Avi, Michael and Harsh were all sprawled out on the bed, tossing a cricket ball between them and gossiping.
“Men don’t gossip, darling,” Avi denied, leaning against the bedpost, poking at Michael’s bent knee with his toes. “We discuss.”
She tossed her cotton petticoat at him, hitting him full in the face. “Where I come from, chatting about Vikram Malhotra and Sam Khanna and who will shag whom first is definitely gossip.”
“Personally I think they will kill each other first.”
“I’m voting shag and kill.”
Harsh and Michael, who she’d quickly realized were just as wicked as her husband despite their sweet faces, each got their own underclothing missile.
“Who says they’ll kill each other? After all, you’re still alive,” Avi pointed out to Harsh, adding the cricket ball to the attack.
“That’s because you’re starting to like me,” Harsh said with a good amount of cheer. “Also because of Trishna and Michael. But I don’t want to donate their talents to Viki and Sam. I am not that nice.”
“Yes, you are.” Michael laughed. “But Sam Khanna’s another story. He’s a nightmare.”
“Chee!” she chided. “Would you like them to be talking about us in such fashion?”
“Nahin, bhabi. I’d like them to not cause any more drama. I’ve had plenty for my lifetime between you and your mister.” Michael had taken to calling her “sister-in-law” after their foursome’s night together. It was sweet, if a little strange…but no one on set questioned the endearment. Trishna knew that it was Michael’s way
of accepting her and Avi’s marriage for what it was: something that made them family.
“Then maybe you should go play chowkidar outside their rooms, pace back and forth like a night’s watchman and make sure they are behaving,” she suggested. When Harsh laughed, she arched an imperious, “I am your goddess” eyebrow. “And you can go also, meri jaan. I would not want Michael to perform such hard work alone.”
Avi huffed, crossing his arms. “Hey, what about me? Can’t I go with him?”
“Ah-ha.” She made a typical Bengali sound of disbelief. “As if you two would do anything together besides French kiss in the hallway and scare the hotel staff?”
“It’s Punjabi-Brit kissing, thank you very much.” After this pronouncement, her husband and his lover shared a long, indecipherable look and an intimate laugh.
Harsh came off the bed, taking her green Benarasi silk sari and placing it atop the dresser. He squeezed her hands, reminding her that they, too, had an intimacy now. “You know, Trishna is right. This is really not a bad idea, the watching.”
“Arré, wow!” Avi brayed with mirth. “Who knew Mathur the Monk was a voyeur? All your secrets are starting to come out, na? I knew you weren’t so damn perfect!”
Michael shushed him, primarily by draping Trish’s petticoat over his head like a veil. “No, I get it, mate. Perhaps if we chum up with Viki and Sam they won’t go too crazy. We can keep them in line.”
“I don’t know.” Trish shook her head. “You know ‘the blind leading the blind’? I am thinking this will be ‘the bewakoof leading the even more bewakoof’.”
“What does that make you?” Harsh gently grasped her chin, staring into her eyes in that way that melted the hearts of schoolgirls. “I think it means you are the queen of fools,” he teased.
Trishna surprised even herself when she smiled at the designation. When it came to this pack of crazies, being the queen wasn’t the worst thing in the world. Nahin, in fact, it was pretty damn fantastic.
Chapter Thirteen
Nishta runs across the parapets, straining to see her lover riding away towards certain doom. Her father’s man through and through, Shankar steps into her path, stopping her with a firm hand on her shoulder. “Tehro,” he says.”Stop. Do not shame your family with such displays. Alok is the enemy. He will only bring you pain.”
She looks at his unyielding countenance, a mix of agony and sympathy on her proud features. “You’ve never known love, Shankar. Else you would know that even the pain of it is welcome.”
Vikram deleted his SMS before sliding his mobile back into his pocket. There had been two text messages from his secretary, begging his forgiveness for the colossal blunder of booking him on The Raj without looking at the fine print. Bahenchod. He wasn’t getting a bonus this year; that was for sure. Keep me away from Sam was practically the only rule he had for anyone who worked for, or with, him. It was simple. It was absolute. It was all that stood between him and ruin.
Now here he was, in Bihar, with that one rule broken and Sam so close he could feel him.
They’d met on one of those tours of America. Bollywood Extravaganza or some such nonsense. They hadn’t been the headliners, of course. When you had a few Khans on the list, Vikram Malhotra was just second string…and Sam Khanna a massive liability. Back then, Sam’s reputation had been at its absolute worst—and every bit of it completely deserved. The promoter had known Viki’s reputation for being disciplined and had begged him to keep an eye on Sam, lest he trash a hotel and cause the tour bad publicity.
He’d kept an eye on him…and eventually more. Somewhere along the way they’d struck up an easy friendship, and somewhere between New York and Chicago, he’d woken up with Sam’s mouth on him. That smug, self-satisfied mouth that looked like it only knew how to curl in disdain…at two o’clock in the morning, wrapped around his cock, it was a thing of beauty. Sucking, licking, scoring his balls with teasing teeth. Fuck. He hadn’t even known for certain Sam was gay until that moment. It was kind of incontrovertible proof.
Just like doing this film was incontrovertible proof that Viki was ek number ka idiot. He stared across the hotel lounge, swallowing hard. Sam was at the bar, a glass of something clear at his elbow. Vikram told himself that it wasn’t his job to care if the something was gin or club soda. It hadn’t been his job for three years, na? But still his stomach twisted. Still the whispered prayer snuck from his lips, asking Shiva to watch over one of his wild ones. Then, he laughed to himself, massaging the already tight space between his eyebrows with two fingers. Perhaps he needed to pray to Shiva to watch over him as well.
“Hey, Vikram. What’s up? May we join?”
A chair creaking made him look up and match the voice with a face. He greeted Michael Gill and Harsh Mathur with a nod. They were both cleaned up after a day of filming—Michael, model perfect; Harsh pale-eyed and godlike. Together, the three of them looked like Men’s Health poster boys.
“Sure. Have a seat. I am just mentally preparing for tomorrow,” he admitted.
They exchanged a look that he could only interpret as “mysterious”, though its source was more than obvious. As they chatted about his trip, his most recent projects, and he asked after the relevant set side gossip, he knew what they were really trying to figure out: him and Sam. What is the deal? Are you going to upset the apple cart? Are you going to fuck up this shoot? Of course, they were too polite to ask, and he was of no mind to answer. Instead, he chatted about his parents and how much they liked Miami, since it had a sizable Indian community and familiar weather.
Eventually, Harsh drifted away. Then Michael, who shook his hand and said “best of luck!” before slipping out to the garden. When Viki turned back to his dinner, it was to realize he had left it too long. The grilled chicken tasted like sawdust, and the flash-fried karela was cold, rendering its bitterness unpalatable. Still, he forced a few more bites, knowing he needed the sustenance for the morning. He had two hand-to-hand combat sequences up first thing. Joshi and the fight master were hoping to have them in the can before the rain showers began again.
They would be his first scenes with Sam. Reba in wardrobe let slip that the cameramen had already placed wagers on how many takes they would go before arguing. It could be worse, Viki thought. They could be placing bets on how many takes they would go before landing in bed.
Chandu and Shankar face each other, blade drawn against rifle, Mother India against Mother England. Their past, playing as children at the feet of another mother who gave them both shelter, is yet another entity in the standoff, begging them not to spill blood.
“Chandu, you never should have joined Varun’s side,” Shankar spits, his eyes narrowed to slits.
“You never should have left it,” Chandu says simply.
It took four go-rounds until Joshi was satisfied with the sequence, with the camera angles and the close-ups of their brawl in the dirt. “Symbolic of how Chandu and Shankar fought as boys,” he’d pronounced, like there was so much depth to his every idea. By the end of it, half the cuts and scrapes they’d incurred were real, not just “symbolic”. Sam ached in places he hadn’t ached since going through detox in rehab.
Afterwards, they each headed to the rooms that had been turned into the haveli’s costume area, stripping off filthy kurta and dhoti and scandalizing the wardrobe girls. They shed Chandu and Shankar, too, leaving their characters on the floor in shapeless heaps. As Sam came back to himself, so did his awareness of Vikram. He tried not to look, tried not to remember, but Vikram was built like a warrior…all broad shoulders and muscles and whorls of dark hair clinging to his taut abs. His gaze was drawn there despite his best efforts, devouring every inch like a starving man. Surely Vikram felt the heat of his eyes; surely he tried to shut out the instant answering heat in his gut as he pulled a T-shirt over his head.
Being attracted to each other had never been their problem. It was easy. Effortless. As natural as breathing. As dangerous as choking.
But Vikram sh
owed none of that. No, he simply said, “Good job today,” in clipped, professional tones, like they’d never worked together before and Sam was some extra on the set. Vikram had always been the very model of tact, of restraint.
“‘Good job’? That is all you have to say to me after three years?” Sam didn’t know whether he was annoyed or amused.
Viki’s response was a combination of both. His fists were tight, his mouth set even tighter. “What do you want? A parade and a banner proclaiming, ‘Hello’ and ‘How do you do’? Our first scene is finished. We’re alive. We didn’t break anything. What more is there?”
Sam deserved that. Hell, he’d set the rules, na? No talking, no e-mails, no Diwali cards or sweets at Christmas. When they’d split up, they’d snapped every tie—even the ones that required casual niceties. For three years, Vikram had walked out of every room Sam walked into. Now Sam was making small talk like they were in some auntie’s parlor. It’s a recovery thing, he could say. Only it wasn’t. He hadn’t twelve-stepped his way out of the pit, and this wasn’t about making amends to someone he’d wronged. Nahin, this was simple need. Because he hadn’t kicked one last bloody habit.
“I was trying to be a grown-up for once. Civil. Isn’t that what you always used to ask me? ‘Be an adult’?” He jerked on his shirt, haphazardly doing up the buttons and missing a few along the way. “Fine. Tik hai. Unless the cameras are rolling, I won’t trouble you. Okay?”
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