Benign Flame: Saga of Love - 29

Continued from “Night of the Mates’

The next morning Roopa woke up at nine as if from a dream, and found Raja Rao still asleep, looking at him fondly, thought ecstatically,

‘Wasn’t it better than all my dreams put together!’

Though she touched him impulsively, as if to confirm that her fulfillment was in the realms of possibility, for once, as the softness of her touch failed to excite him in his slumber, he continued to sleep like a log.

‘Oh, what a night it has been!’ she thought, withdrawing her hand though without taking her eyes off him. ‘Didn’t I know that it would be marvelous with him? What a lover to have. Can’t he be the one in a billion or maybe even in a trillion? Wasn’t all that longing worth for this sense of belonging? It’s as if he has pushed out all my frustration with his very first thrust itself! Haven’t I experienced the feeling of lovemaking in his passion? How fulfilling it feels! What a joy being a woman! I wish to be a woman in every birth if only for being his woman. Well, but for Sandhya, I wouldn’t have met him at all.’

‘Don’t I owe Sandhya in other ways too,’ she fondly recalled about her friend, looking at their man. ‘Some associations bring in happiness, and some, nothing but misery, so it seems! To start with, how I hesitated to befriend her! Can I imagine life without her now! Won’t he cement that bond even more? But, in spite of our euphoric threesome talk, how would Sandhya take to our affair? Will she feel betrayed at my seducing her man? One cold look from her, and won’t I die of shame then and there. But she knows how I’ve been suffering for want of love, what if I beg her for his love? Won’t she push me into his arms without second thoughts? Then, as I cuddle in his embrace, won’t she as well caress me for my comfort?’

‘Until the other day, all I craved was for a corner in his heart, and no more,’ she thought amusedly. ‘But now, am I not yearning for orgies with him and his wife. That’s what human nature is all about, isn’t it? The more one gets, all the more one wants, doesn’t one? Strange that my life is, who knows, that too might come true. Why won’t he like to bring that about himself? Surely he would love to see his women crawling all over him and on each other as well, it’s maddening even to imagine our orgies. How lucky I’m that I haven’t give in to Prasad to spite Sathyam. Why, I could have avenged myself on Sathyam all right, but how could all this bliss have been mine. Well, negative emotions could be tools of revenge, but it’s the positive feelings that aid one’s fulfillment, don’t they?’

“Won’t you get up my love?” she crooned in his ears, as he stirred.

“What’s the time like, darling?” he asked drowsily.

“It’s nine, want some bed-coffee?” she caressed his back, as he laid his head in her lap.

‘What a time we’ve had Roopa!” he said, enlacing her at her waist.

“I’m unable even to recollect my yesterday’s agony, how well you’ve driven out my suffering past with your magic wand!” she whispered into his ears, as if to keep her feelings out of the earshot of her past.

“Promise you won’t desert me; having got you, I’ll die if I were to lose you. Now I love to savor life with Sandhya and you,” he said earnestly.

“After all that waiting, do you think I’m mad to spoil my party? I would be your Roopa Rao for the rest of my life. Oh, how our names score in the symphony of love!” she said in all fulfillment.

“So to enthrall our life,” he pressed himself closer to her.

Having gone into the kitchen thereafter, she woke up to the surroundings.

‘What if Yadamma had come and gone, having got no response!’ she began to think. ‘Maybe, there was a load shedding before I got up and her door knocks too might’ve failed to resonate with my ears that got used to our love-talk. But what would she infer finding him here tomorrow? I’ll tell her not to turn up for the next three days. But how am I to keep away Lalitha from peeping in? I couldn’t care less about her as anyway she thinks I’m lost. But isn’t discretion the better part of valour? So, on and off, I should go to her myself to ensure that she wouldn’t come up calling on me. With that trespasser of a Prasad having gone abroad, only Tara would be among the likely callers. And given our background, anyway, she would be a welcome visitor; what if I invite her myself to let her see it all for herself?’

“How we can carry on in the long run,” she said, serving him some coffee

“Why worry, trust our passion for that,” he said nonchalantly.

“But others would raise their eyebrows,” she said in disappointed tone.

“None, if you’re my personal secretary,” he said winking at her.

“But Sathyam is averse to my working,” she said in disillusionment.

“Won’t Sandhya bring him around?” he said taking her hand.

“Oh, you my little schemer,” she said in all admiration.

“Why not we eat out and make it to a matinee too,” he proposed.

“How sexy, we do owe ourselves a party,” she said excitedly.

“I deserve to show my fortune to the world, don’t I?” he smiled taking her into his arms.

‘What a man you are, how you excite me with your looks, touch and talk,” she said joyously.

“Won’t your seat, skin, and smell make you a XXX randy,” he said pinching her bottom.

“Do you drink rum?” she asked him.

“We do have at times,” he said winking at her.

“How I love to join you,” she said dreamily. 

“Wait for her call,” he said smilingly.

When they had their bath together, she led him to her wardrobe and said coyly,

“You choose for me.”

“You fascinate in any sari, but seem ravish in brown, and grey,” he said, picking up light brown chiffon.

“So our tastes too match our minds,” she said taking the sari from him.

“Only to fuse in our loving hearts,” he said enlacing her

“By the fortuitous hand of Sandhya’s angelic soul,” she said smug in his embrace.

“You said it darling,”’ he said looking at her lovingly.

While mesmerically watching her wearing the sari, he said,

“What reciprocity between your body and your sari! Can’t I see it gracing your persona while acquiring an alluring shape all for itself? Oh, Roopa, how you are bodily fashioned for lovemaking! To think that you’re mine is gratifying really.”

“How your passion solaces my soul?” she embraced him.

“Even though your hair is fabulous in its plait, I feel you turn a charmer in chignon,” he said coiling her hair.

“Won’t I look an aunty, yet I’ll be what you want me to be,” she said aiding him.  

“Aunty, what with your nape too showing its teeth, you make a deadly randy. How fascinating you are, my darling!” he said kissing her bare back that her blouse exposed.

“So, from now on, this is the hairdo of Roopa Rao,” she said kissing him.

“There’s no way I can describe the spell of your charm,” he laced her ardently.

“Can’t I discern that from your demeanor,” she said joyously.

“You glow even more in a pearls chain as it glistens on you velvet skin,” he said endearingly,

“What in your eyes would glamorize Sandhya even more?” she asked him.

‘Imagine corals on her rosy bosom; I’ll love to adorn you together,” he said dreamily.

“As I see the measure of man is his ability to envision the nuances of his woman, you measure up as the man of men. I’m sure Sandhya too would love that day when you have us both,” she said in all admiration.

“You know how to flatter your man,” he patted her, obviously pleased with her outpouring.

“Let me see if Lalitha is around; lock the door and join me at my signal,” she said, as they were ready to leave.

“What a strange honeymoon it is, we couple at home only to decouple at its steps,” she said, as he reached her on the main road.

“Being confined to its sheath, the cutting edge of love remains sharp, maybe that’s the charm of liaisons,” he said taking her hand.

“But still I want to be known as your woman not the other woman,” she said pressing his hand.

“Let’s not be too greedy, why uproot Sathyam’s life? Remember your promise,” he said cajolingly.

“Sorry, I was carried away, I shall keep my word, and love you ever more for that,” she said apologetically.

When they sat at a table for two at Blue Fox, she said,

“How I wish it were for the three of us. You don’t know how I love Sandhya.”

“You can’t make me jealous on that count, can you?” he said in smile,

“Why you should for all our love is all yours?” she said winking at him.

‘‘How she has become a part of me; her confinement is telling upon me,” he said reminiscently,

“I know but are you going to tell her about our meeting?” she said taking his hand.

‘Let’s mention it in the passing, to both of them that is,” he said as he started footsie.

“I thought as much when you got into your chappals,” she said joining him in the footsie and enjoying the sensual pulsations his touch has induced in her.

“Roopa, had you modeled, Marlene Dietrich’s legs would have been cut down to size,” he said in all admiration.

“I’m glad I’ve got a leg man for my man,” she said joyously.

“Now, I’ll give you some legwork,” he said, as he took his leg up above her calf. “You’ve to locate an office space that caters to the needs of our passion and a flat that goes with the taste of your friend. You know it covers the distance if you find them both near your house.”

‘I’ll get into the mission mode,” she winked at him.

Having had a sumptuous meal, they hired an auto-rickshaw to go to Deepak for the matinee show. However, seeing some sari shops on the way, Raja Rao asked the driver to stop nearby.

“Let’s get a sari for you,” he got down.

“Won’t I treasure it as the commemorative one,” she said coyly.

‘Won’t it remind me every time I disrobe it,” he crooned into her ears as she stepped out of the auto.

As both of them were scanning the saris in those rows of shelves, she picked up a brown venkatagiri and began feeling it on herself.

“Won’t it go well with me?” she said excitedly.

“And this as well,” he handed her a grey pochampally.

“I’ll have that then,” she dropped the venkatagiri.

“You have them both,” he said handing her the venkatagiri.

“If only you promise me that you would have us together,” she said to him in undertone.

“Would I love that any less?” he murmured in her ears.

After she had selected matching blouse pieces for those saris, they came out of the shop.

“How else I can thank you twice than by wearing them both together?” she said coyly, as they walked towards the auto-rickshaw, kept in wait for them,

“That would be an overburden to my eager hands, and to tell you the truth, you look the best with none on you,” he whispered into her joyous ears.

“Let me also reveal my mind; you’re alike handsome, with and without your jeans,” she said turning coy.

“Thank you, I’ll join you in a minute,” he said, as she got into the auto. 

“What’s that?” she asked him when he returned with a packet.

“It’s personal,” he winked at her.

“Is that so?” she said reaching for it.

“I feel so,” he smiled holding it back.

“Then lock it in your briefcase,” she said feigning anger.

‘Anything to do with you is personal to me, isn’t it?” he said, cajoling her.

“Mere words aren’t they?” she said looking the other way.

“Some colorful thirty-sixes for you,” he crooned into her ears.

“Good memory,” she smiled, thrilled to the core.

‘The haunting one of our love spheres,” he whispered,

While she rested her head on his shoulder, as though made heady by his love, the auto took them to the Deepak Theatre.

However, by the time they got into cinema hall, the matinee was already under way but no sooner they settled in their seats than their legs sought partners for footsie. Thus by the interval time, even as their legs got weary, their souls craved for fusion. So, as their looks conveyed longing, their legs signaled the exit.

“Get a few,” she whispered as they came out of the theatre.

“How many?” he said heartily.

“As many as you could wet,” she said coyly.

While she waited at the gate, he went out on her errand, and soon, as she saw him returning with a Vanilla large picked up at the nearby Kwality, she guessed his intentions and followed his coming in all eagerness.

“So, you’re fond of ice cream?” she said all the same, feeling his pocket.

“I thought you could blow hot and cold,” he whispered leaning onto her.

“What an imagination,” she ruffled his hair in admiration.

“Owing to your inspiration,” he squeezed her waist.

Soon they reached Domalaguda by an auto-rickshaw, and as though to shed part of her fear, she asked the driver to take them right up to the street corner.

“I’m sorry, but you’ve to come behind me,” she said as she went ahead of him.

“Why the precedent was set last night itself,” he said making her shy.

When she gave him the green signal, propelled by his passion, he increased his pace to reach her place. Then, closing the door behind, he overwhelmed her in no time.

“Roopa, in spite of her love, life without you would’ve been empty, how lucky we   made it,” he said, as they lay satiated in each other’s arms.

“Give me the credit for enticing you in the end, oh, how desperate I was for your fill,” she said in a fulfilled tone.

“That’s why, I owe you even more,” he clasped her hand.

“Raja, the more you explore my body, even more I’m coming to know about my soul. I never knew love would mean so much in spite of my craving for you,” she said, kissing his chest.

“Even if I spend a lifetime on your frame, I’m sure it would still have nuances left to enthrall my senses,” he said, fondling her.

Soon they had their nap as though to refresh themselves for the time ahead and as they woke up she said,

“I’ll make some coffee for us.”

“Make it a little hotter for better effect,” he said winking at her.

“Why not,” she winked back at him, as she went into the kitchen.

“See how it differs from those ice-cream jerks,” he said even as she returned with two cups of steaming coffee for them.

“With you I’m a game for anything,” she said enthusiastically.

“Oh, you are a marvelous woman,” he shrieked in time.

“For the marvel of a man,” she sputtered.

“Brought by the hand of love” he said in ecstasy.

“I’m afraid the latex would lacerate,” she said, condoming him at length.

“Oh! Roopa what a dame are you?” he said in happiness.

“I’ll let you know now,” she said, as she mounted.

“Oh, my love” he cried in ecstasy.

“Hold my boobs,” she moaned in joy.

“What a randy,” he said, as he took his turn in their lovemaking.

“Horny honey,” she said, satiated at length.

“Roopa, I’m coming to see the commonality between sex and sport, basics being the same, it’s the players who raise the bar,” he said resting on her belly in fulfillment.

“How true,” she said caressing his chest.

When they bathed together in the evening, wanting to have him there too, she made him want her even more.

After bath, as she began wearing the new pochampally, he ogled at her, as if she were new to him.

“I’m sorry that you’re caged here,” she said apologetically.

“No sorries in cupid’s nest,” he said taking her into his arms.

“So so sexy,” she said sinking into him.

When she got into the kitchen to prepare dinner for them, he started helping her in the kitchen chores.

“Why get tired here when you’ve got to exert elsewhere,” she said taking away the kitchen knife from him.

“Will this do?” he said in smile, as he squatted on the floor, leaning to the wall.

“That’s fine, but don’t dare stir out from there,” she said, assuming the posture of a monitor with a ladle for the stick.

“May I know what went wrong with you and him,” he said hesitantly.

‘My life an open book for you, but why spoil our party with my problems,” she said.

“You know I want you to be happily wed-locked, let’s see how we can fix it,” he said concernedly.  

“I’m happy you care,” as she said, she went up to him to kiss.

While she prepared their meal, she narrated her life and times, and said in the end,

“I’ve only to blame myself, for I never made him feel wanted.”

‘I’m sure, he would return to a sweeter home,” he said, caressing her affectionately.

“To be honest with you, I could never love him the way I dreamt of loving a man,” she said, cuddling herself in his embrace. “I shouldn’t have married him at all and that was the biggest blunder of my life. So it’s in a void that I lived till you swept me off my feet on that fateful 6th of June (she looked up and winked at him). Having got you after all that craving, I should’ve cared two hoots for him, but as you’ve opened my eyes to the real meaning of our love life, I shall open my heart to him as well. Now, I’m full of hope as your love has given me zest for life.”

“I would love to see that dawn in his life,” he said reaching for her lips.

“Raja, I’m really proud of you,” she said hugging him tightly as he released her lips. “I’ll bring that about, if only to prove the power of our love. I thought about what you’ve said and realized that it makes much sense. As you’ve pictured the sentimental aspects so clearly, I could see the practical utility of it all. After all, adultery could be a double jeopardy for women, as affairs can’t cater to the marital irritants that push women into alien arms; and making it worse for them, liaisons induce a feeling of guilt, pricking their conscience all the time. So, while still having to endure that which made them adulterous, women in liaison find themselves carrying the cross of infidelity as well. Besides, in time, the fear of exposure, imparts dullness to their sense of excitement, and that robs them of the thrills on the frills. When in the end, the inevitable desertion is on hand; won’t women wonder about the futility of it all, so your idea could be a viable via media for such. Oh, how I feel enslaved by your intellectual love.”

‘I’m proud of you Roopa for expanding it so well,” he kissed her ardently.  

“With all that rubbing we’ve been having, a little of your intellect could have seeped into me,” she said with a sense of satisfaction.

“Add that to your love and charms, won’t you enslave me,” he said in admiration, and added in jest. “But do spare me for I’ve to serve her as well.”

“Why won’t I lend my helping hand to help you serve her better,” she said as she winked at him, and thought,

‘How unique my life is! Isn’t it thrilling to have a man and his wife for lovers without the other being wiser to it? Oh, how exciting it is, being in the eye of the love storm.’

“May I see your course material,” he said, as they came out of the kitchen.

She readily placed all the course material before him and looked at him eagerly.

“I know from your letters to Sandhya that your pen carries the beauty of your hand,” he said perusing her notebooks.

“Bur how I wish I can show you the Rama Kotis in my heart bearing your name,” she said leaning on him.

‘Roopa, I love your letter greeting me when I get back to Delhi,” he said, kissing her writing hand.

“What else to write than seeking sex dates from my horny man, so that is that,” she said coyly.

“Surely you can picture your reflections of our union for one,” he said.

“As if you haven’t seen them all,” she sank into his lap.

“Being unlucky in love,” he said reflectively, “I never had any love letter to read. Seeing Sandhya, my mind wanted her as wife before love entered my heart. But as you know ours is love at first sight. That way, you’re the first woman I loved and had. If you feel it’s not risky, we could correspond till we come here.”

“I’m happy being special to you but I feel sad that you had to wait for so long to love-mate,” she said cajolingly, and added in disappointment, “Yet, I don’t want some postal mishap ruining our love.”

“You can safely write, if not receive,” he said, and added in jest, “If you fail to write, I’ll send you a reminder.”

“Blackmail,” she smiled.

“Love mail,” he laughed.

‘Ok boss, but tell me how I can assist you at work,” she said in all seriousness.

“So to say with your presence itself; Moreover, your general abilities and her creative capabilities should do wonders for us, I’m really hopeful that we three could make it work.” he said thoughtfully.

“With two women backing your genius, I’m sure we would succeed,” she said in all admiration.

“Don’t be lavish in your praises; only when something goes on smoothly for some length of time, can one say that some genius is at work there. But we haven’t even started,” he said unpretentiously.

‘I’ve a hunch that our sufferings are behind us and a rosy future awaits us,” she said exuding optimism.

“But what of the present,” he said ardently.

“It’s in our mating, isn’t it?” she said amorously.

In the ecstasy of their lovemaking quite a lot of midnight oil was burnt that night as well.

----

Waking up at his honeymoon time of nine, Raja Rao tiptoed into the kitchen to surprise Roopa, and as he laced her at her back, she lay smug in his embrace for long.

“What’s for the day darling?” he crooned into her ears at length.

“Why not a Lambretta ride, all the way into the wilderness,” she said as she had an agenda on hand.

“No doubt it would be an exciting ride but what if Lalitha derails it by alerting Sathyam about it?” he said.

‘I couldn’t care less for once, but even if it comes to that, won’t I make up something for an explanation?” she said nonchalantly.

“Roopa, what a perfect ten you are!” he said, watching her wear the brown Venkatagiri sari.

“But Sandhya is ten plus one, and I mean it,” she said.  

 “While your passion supplies me the life-force, she sustains that with her love, that’s how you both bring substance to my life,” he said contemplatively.

“Why not a ménage a trois then,” she said enticingly.

“Not that I want it any less to happen but what I seek more is that you succeed with Sathyam,” he said taking her hand.

“As much as I want to live with you, still I would try to be more eager for him, if only as a salutation to our love,” she said, moved no end.

When they stepped out of the house and got onto Sathyam’s Lambretta for a ride into the wilderness, riding the pillion, as they crossed the city limits, she enlaced him amorously.

“How pleasantly hard it is Roopa,” he said, without turning back.

“It’s my dream ride Raja, take me to some no man’s land,” she hugged him closer.

When he finally stopped the scooter near Shamirpet, she spotted a place yonder for their rendezvous.

Spreading a bedsheet under a banyan tree, they sat for a session of sweet nothings, and having eaten some rotis with dalfry bought at a dhaba on their way, they settled for siesta.

But no sooner they woke up than she goaded him to move around the place ‘like grazing cows’.

“You’re crazy really,”’ he said.

“Am I not in love?” she walked spiritedly ahead of him.

Soon spotting a mango grove, she ran towards it, dragging him all the way, and as they got therein, leaving him perplexed on the ground, she climbed up a well-grown tree. When she perched herself on a low branch, and invited him to join her there, he obliged her saying,

“How you amaze me Roopa!”

“Raja you gave me the real me,” she said cuddling him in delight.

“Roopa, even in my wildest dreams, I haven’t imagined anything near this,” he said holding her dearly.

“Now I’m being gripped by the animal in me,” she jumped down, pulling him along.

“Be my bull,” she said having bent on the ground and lifting her sari to bare her arse for him.

“How you’ve become insane!” he said amazedly.

“True, but then, you should know how I’ve been craving for you? I want you to lay me at wherever I’d pined for you. Maybe, it’s the only way I might be able to erase those painful moments of my craving for you. How I wish you could stay put in me. Why has not nature made it that way?” she said excitedly in her provocative posture.

“Oh, to be wanted like this is divine indeed,” he said, as he followed her bidding.

 In the end, as the sun was all set to cross the horizon, they headed back to the city, as if to beat it at its own game. But once they reached Paradise, they stopped for a cup of Irani chai that they shared by the roadside. Thereafter, having loitered on the Tank Bund for a while, on their way back home, he picked up four bottles of King Fisher.

“Are you going to gobble up all that beer?” she said second guessing his intentions.

“I thought you would share,” he said tantalizingly.

“Does it help me too?” she winked at him.

“Yes, to take the stuffing out of me,” he said in smile.

Reaching home, they were relieved at finding a padlock on the landlord’s door.

“Looks like my bad-luck is a spent force now, touch wood,” she said, touching the door before she opened it.

“That’s good for our love,” he said repeating the ritual.

Having stuffed the beer bottles in the fridge, they went together into the bathroom for a shower. Though they went in together as if to save time, yet they took a long time coming out of it, only to settle down on the bed for ‘cheers’.

“Isn’t it bitter,” she said after the first sip.

“You will feel better after a gulp or more,” he said in encouragement.

“I know it would be better for me, even without me drinking it,” she smiled.

“You are a pet dear,” he said.

“Like her, you mean,” she said, smiling.

“Did she tell you that she likes her peg having my peg?” he said with a glint in his eye.

“I won’t betray her secrets, even to her man,” she said in mirth lying in his lap.

“So you would gang up in our ménage a trios, better I have second thoughts,” he said in jest  

About to respond, she retched, and his hands got outstretched.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said in embarrassment as he wiped her mouth clean, he having cleaned his own hands before.

“Why, won’t you take my cum?” he said, cuddling her in his embrace.

“If not for that what for a woman is made?” she said smiling, looking into his eyes as he sought her lips eagerly.

While he made love to her, she readily surrendered her soul to him as her body sought him even more eagerly.

When she was at preparing meals for them, enjoying his drink, he kept her company in the kitchen, and as if the beer tasted better from his bottle, she began to share it with him at every turn.  Having been rejuvenated after dinner, they indulged themselves, as if there would be no sex life left after that night for them.

-----

When Roopa got up the next day, finding Raja Rao staring at her longingly, she felt as if she woke up from a dream.

“Why stare at me as if I’m new to you?” she said, getting closer to him,

“I’m not able to believe that all your beauty is mine,” he said, blowing into her navel.

“Worried about the void, I couldn’t sleep for long,” she said pensively

“I’ll be back in your arms before your love bites lose their traces,” he said baring his shoulders.

“Wish I were a vampire to live on your blood till then,” she said biting him to the bones.

“Ooh, my bitch,” he said in pain

“I itch for such,” she said in want.

‘What shall I tell Sandhya’s about these,” he said still in pain.

“Tell her to ask me,” she said coyly, and added,” You want her to deliver a boy or a girl?”

“Baby girl,” he said.

“If I could, I would like to bear your son,” she said.

“Why is that?” he said inquisitively.

“I want a future Roopa to have a man like you,” she said admiringly.

“Roopa, oh, how you love me!” he said hugging her.

“When would be the barasala?” she said.

“Once you hear from her don’t fail to book your tickets,” he said.

“I’ve an idea, we shall make it in a 1st Class coupe for two; as I make some coffee for us, think how to bring it about,” she said excitedly, and he too followed her into the kitchen.

While preparing the coffee and picturing their togetherness on the train, she recalled her weird experience in the coupe, and as if the milk on the burner too shared her urge to narrate the episode to her lover, it boiled itself in double quick time.

Having heard her recap, he tried to figure out the embarrassment she might have felt then, and said,

“That’s what life is all about, stranger than fiction, as they say, but do check below the berths before all else,”

“No worry as it’s once bitten twice shy, now tell me how we get in there in the first place,” she said eagerly.

“Book a coupe for us in the Godavari, party joining at Kazipet. You ring me up so that I too can book my ticket to kazipet. As he would be with you till the train moves out, you book another ticket for you as usual. Then at Kazipet, we would check into the cupid’s corner,” he explained as they had coffee.

“What a ‘love on wheels’ that would be reminding me, jab miya bibi raaji to kya karega kazi,” she hugged him, spilling the dregs on him.

 When the clock struck eleven though, it occurred to her that in its forward march, time would abet her lover to leave her for his wife’s place that evening, and that made her feel morose.

“Cheer up Roopa, If you sulk, that would only make it worse for me,” he said at last.

“Maybe you can measure my love on the scale of your misery,’ she sighed.

‘How true,’ he said, hugging her.

“You can’t separate love and anxiety in a woman’s heart,’ she said, tightening her grip on him.

“That’s why love is so painfully sweet,” he kissed her tears, ‘and salty too.’

By the time they reached the Secunderabad Railway Station in the evening, Roopa began to see Raja Rao’s impending departure as a necessary evil for their forthcoming togetherness.

“As you make love to her, give my love to her,” she whispered to him in the din of the arriving train.

When the Godavari Express languidly pulled out of that railway platform, gazing at him lovingly, she waved at him furiously.

If only her sense of longing for her lover had acquired a physical dimension, probably the train, in spite of its diesel power, wouldn’t have moved an inch forward.

Continued to “Euphoric Forays”