by Sheryn Munir
“Mm, I think I’m managing fine without it,” Tara said, placing a finger on Sameen’s lips. “But, I’m sorry to tell you, Ms Hotshot Editor, ‘lesbosity’ is not a real word.”
“Isn’t English an evolving language?”
“You would prefer a discussion on semantics?”
“No thank you,” Sameen said, her tone contrite, a smile still edging her words. “There are other things I’d rather do.”
Tara’s voice was a whisper. “Such as?”
“I’d rather not say,” Sameen went on, her voice even softer now, sending currents of anticipation down Tara’s body, “because there’s this adage we editors rather like, and that is, ‘show, don’t tell’.”
That left Tara incapable of further intellectual exchange. They lay facing each other, separated only by a whisper of air. Sameen ran a hand along the edges of Tara’s face and came to rest on the side of her neck. Her fingers were warm against Tara’s chilled face. She closed her eyes as Sameen’s lips met hers.
Epilogue
“Oh Mama, will you please stop stressing?” Tara ran her fingers through her hair in frustration. “Your taxi is waiting. You have nine old ladies waiting to be taken to McLeod Ganj. Just go.”
“Make sure you water my plants daily. Just because you won’t be living here anymore doesn’t mean you don’t have a responsibility to this house.”
“Don’t worry, Chhaya. I will wake her up early every day to come water the plants,” Sameen said with a mischievous glint in her eyes.
Tara glared at her threateningly.
“My only child going away to live somewhere else,” said Chhaya with a dramatic sigh, a hand on her chest.
Tara rolled her eyes. “Mama, stop it! Ever since you started taking these women on tours all over the country, you’re the one who has hardly been home. So if anyone should complain, it should be me. Also, I’m not moving to the other side of the world. I’m only moving upstairs, for heaven’s sake.”
Sameen had been looking for a new place to get away from the house she had set up with Rohan. So when Chhaya’s first-floor tenants had moved out earlier in the year, she’d moved upstairs. For a while, the arrangement worked fine, but now, ten months later, considering Tara spent most of her time upstairs anyway, they had decided that she should move in with Sameen. It made little difference as Tara would also stay close to her mother—always a good idea in case she took on any more extreme hobbies.
“Chhaya, don’t you trust me to take good care of her?” Sameen asked, making puppy-dog eyes at her.
Tara knew that look very well. It had the power to move mountains and melt rocks. She had been at the receiving end of it many times in the past year that she and Sameen had been together. And she knew that, with that look, whatever Sameen wanted, Sameen got.
“The only reason I’m letting her move out is because she’s going to live with you, Sameen,” Chhaya said. “If it were anybody else, there’s no way they’d have been able to take her away from me.”
“Oh my god,” said Tara, rolling her eyes again. “Sometimes it seems like you two are stuck in a Bollywood film.”
Sameen ignored the jibe. “Then go on your trip and leave your house and your daughter to me,” she said. It was no less dramatic. “Rest assured that when you come back, everything will be just the same and we will be here waiting for you.”
Chhaya sighed. “Yes, of course. Okay, I’ll be going, then.”
She hugged Sameen and then Tara. She got into the cab and waved until it turned the corner.
“Phew!” Tara plonked herself down on the sofa, while Sameen shut the door. “She’s so exhausting.”
“Nah, she’s cool.”
“Right,” said Tara, rubbing her hands. “Let’s pack some boxes and get this show on the road. Even if the road is just two flights of stairs.”
She started to get up, but Sameen pushed her back on the sofa, kneeling by her and running her finger down Tara’s arm. “Or,” she said slowly, “we could leave the boxes for a little bit and find other ways of exercising our limbs.”
“Are you propositioning me, Ms Siddiqi?” Tara enquired with one eyebrow raised, her gaze following the movement of the finger.
“Why yes, I certainly am, Ms Dixit. How did you know?”
“Just a wild guess,” Tara replied as Sameen pushed her down and straddled her thighs. Tara’s fingers brushed against Sameen’s cheeks, sliding into her hair as she pulled Sameen’s face down towards her.
But before their lips could meet, there was a knock on the door. Sameen groaned and said something colourful in Punjabi that even Tara, who had grown up in Delhi, had never dared to voice.
“I’ll get it,” she added. “It must be Barkha with the cartons she promised.” She fixed her hair and opened the door.
“Hi, Sameen.” Barkha swept in, followed by Kunal staggering under the weight of an armful of flat-packed cardboard cartons. She stopped short of the sofa and gave Tara a once-over. “Oh, look at my baby. All grown up and finally moving out to live with her girlfriend. I never thought this day would come.”
“Hello to you too,” Tara said. “And once again, I’m only moving upstairs!”
“Er, where should I put these?” Kunal asked.
“Follow me.” Sameen led him down the corridor towards Tara’s room.
“He-ey,” a new voice called out. “Anyone hungry?”
It was Ashish, with Milind, each of them carrying bags from which delicious smells wafted.
“Oh good, the food is here.” Tara grabbed a packet from Milind and headed for the kitchen. Ashish followed to help as they laid out samosas, dhokla, and lemonade, while the others chatted and assembled cartons.
After a short break for snacks, they got down to business. Between them, they were going to lug Tara’s furniture up, while they would pack the rest of her stuff in boxes and suitcases. Milind had brought along a marker that he used liberally on the boxes—“It’s very easy to mix them up,” he said. “I should know, I’ve moved a lot.”
A couple of hours later, Tara’s room was rather bare. She couldn’t help feeling a little tug at the thought of moving out. She had spent almost all her life in this house. When she had been five, her mother had read her the entire set of Noddy books over one weekend, curled up on the carpet in the living room. She was eight when she’d hidden her first secret journal, taped behind the cistern in the bathroom, which had turned into a soggy mess eventually. This was where she had agonized over her first crush (maths teacher in class three), sitting at her desk, and making cards she’d never given her. This was the same bed in the same room where she and Radhika had first had sex. And it was the bed she’d fallen into and cried when they’d broken up. This was the hall where she and her father had played cricket with a ping-pong ball and a rolled-up newspaper on Sundays. She remembered watching Grey’s Anatomy on the living room TV three years ago when the phone call about her father had come.
“Tara, what about your latest jigsaw puzzle?” Barkha called out, yanking her out of her trip down memory lane.
Tara blinked. Her eyes were moist. She wasn’t moving away, she reminded herself, and she would be here almost every day. “Er, let it be,” she called out.
Sameen’s arm slipped around her. “What’s the matter?” she said. “Having second thoughts?”
Tara smiled and leaned into Sameen. “No. Just thinking about all the memories I have here.”
“We’ll make new ones.”
“I know,” she said, giving Sameen a quick peck on the lips.
Hand in hand, they went out into the living room where Milind and Kunal were organizing the boxes. Ashish was bent over the half-finished 500-piece puzzle of a garden on the coffee table. He looked up apologetically at Tara. “Sorry, I saw a piece that fit.”
“It’s fine,” said Tara, giving Sameen’s hand a squee
ze. “Sometimes the pieces just fall into place.”
About Sheryn Munir
Sheryn Munir is a big fan of romances. After reading countless lesbian romance novels based in Western countries, she desperately wanted to read one based in India. Realising that she’d have to wait forever for that wish to come true, she decided to have a crack at writing one herself. Falling into Place is the result of that endeavour.
Sheryn was born in Lucknow and grew up in Delhi, India. Though she started writing from the age of seven, she was only recently inspired to write an entire book in a genre close to her heart that is about her own people. Sheryn has studied journalism and freelances as a writer, editor, and web developer. While she likes visiting new places, the journeys are a tad unpleasant. She has a weakness for chocolates, Indian street foods, and British television dramas. She lives in Delhi with three laptops and an e-reader.
CONNECT WITH SHERYN
Website: www.sherynmunir.com
Twitter: twitter.com/sherynmunir
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© 2018 by Sheryn Munir
ISBN (mobi): 978-3-95533-973-9
ISBN (epub): 978-3-95533-974-6
Also available as paperback.
Published by Ylva Publishing, legal entity of Ylva Verlag, e.Kfr.
Ylva Verlag, e.Kfr.
Owner: Astrid Ohletz
Am Kirschgarten 2
65830 Kriftel
Germany
www.ylva-publishing.com
First edition: 2018
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.
Credits
Edited by Lee Winter and JoSelle
Proofread by Amanda Jean
Cover Design and Print Layout by Streetlight Graphics