An excerpt from Benign Flame: Saga of Love by BS Murthy

‘I read your letter a hundred times,’ he said as he pulled it from his pocket, ‘for its romantic quality.’

‘Thanks for your compliment,’ she sank into him coyly, ‘for my maiden effort.’

‘Why don’t you read it for me?’ he gave her the letter.

‘Why do you want to embarrass me?’ she said gazing at it lovingly.

‘Why not try,’ he coaxed her. ‘Having seen your love in the print of your hand, now I want to savor it in the tenor of your tone.’

She smiled with satisfaction, but read with inhibition.

“Raja dear,

Believe me, for more than an hour now, I’ve been toying with my pen to picture the feelings of my heart so that you could feel them in my missive. Well, had you been around, by now we would have made love twice over. Oh, is there any human expression other than lovemaking that is so full in its intent and content!

I wonder why I feel so diffident to find words to express that by which I breathe my life. Oh, is it not our love that helps me live. Perhaps, a woman prefers to preserve her love in the recess of her heart, as if its exposure, even to her lover, deprives it of its pristine purity. As you know, I didn’t have any inhibitions turning nude that night, before your very eyes, that too on my own. Thus, isn’t it strange that I should struggle now to bare my heart, in spite of your command! It looks like the emotions of my love are closer to my heart than the feelings of my frame. If not, how could have I steered clear of all those temptations for the appointment with our fulfillment? Oh what a destiny!

Why, I’m annoyed with you still, for having insisted on my penning down my inner feelings, although I made you privy to every nuance of my emotion. Oh, had I not conveyed my craving for you through my body, every time it was entwined with yours! But, as you know, I only live to fulfill every whim and fancy of yours.

All the same, I can feel your desire to behold our love in my hand, having seen it through my eyes. But be certain that whichever way you look at it, you will still find me fulfilled. If I could make you feel likewise, I would have a purpose to live, and a cause to die for. Don’t you pull faces (she paused to see his face and found it aglow) I know what our love means to you too.

Oh, thanks to our union, I have a revelation. As I find it hard to relive the sexual ecstasy I’ve experienced with you, the sensual pleasure of your touch has come to stay in my consciousness. It is as though the softness of your skin has seeped into my flesh.

I wait - to meet and mate.

Yours ever, by heart and soul,

Roopa Rao.”