Love Lasts Forever (6 page)

‘So how do you like your coffee?’ Aisha asked.

She wa
s wearing light blue faded jeans with a bottle green colour
kurta
that reached her knees. Either she was short or the
kurta
was long. Either ways, she looked ravishing.

             
‘Just the way you like it, sweetie,’ I replied, seated on the beige coloured sofa.

Though the flat
was small for obvious reasons (Bandra, Mumbai!) it didn’t look that small owing to, probably the choice of furniture. The L-shaped sofa sat at the far end of the drawing room saving every inch of the available space. In the middle was a black sliding centre table over a purple rug. Adjoining the drawing room, a six-seated dining occupied the hallway. To sum it up, the interiors were very tastefully done, and I liked the open kitchen concept. I could almost see her in the kitchen, her back toward me, stirring something.

             
I rose and waddled toward her. Her hair was open and dense, and almost managed to shroud her back. As I got closer to her, my heart began pounding against my chest. I stopped inches behind her and placed my arms at the side of her hips. She flinched gently and I moved my arms in front, on her belly, and drew her closer. I snuggled close to her and buried my face in her hair, basking in its scent. She placed her arms on mine and I ran my hands slowly over them. She turned round and hugged me, resting her head over my chest. I raised my arms toward her back and hoped this time to pause forever. Slowly, she withdrew her face and tilted it upward to look in my eyes, wrapping her arms around my neck. ‘I love you,’ she whispered.

Her chirpy
voice sent my body in jitters, and I smiled back. ‘I love you so much,’ I said, leaning closer and kissed her softly on her forehead.

             
Abruptly, almost surprising me, she moved away from me toward the shelf on our left. She opened it and pulled out a light pink coloured mug. She poured whatever she was stirring in the mug and offered me.

‘
Coffee, that’s why I called you here in the first place.’

             
‘Alright,’ I said, ‘thanks!’

I almost puke
d with the very first sip. It had to be the most horrible coffee ever.

             
‘So how’s it?’ she asked, widening her eyes at me.

             
‘It’s amazing, thanks.’ Come on, I love her, can’t be ruining her mood for a cup of coffee.

             
‘Is it?’ she asked skeptically, leaning forward. ‘Priyank tells me I make the most horrible coffee in the world.’

             
And
then
I puked, unable to resist my laughter. I placed the cup aside and yanked her toward me. ‘Yes it’s horrible; in fact horrible is an understatement.’

             
And then we both laughed. Thankfully, that didn’t upset her.

             
‘So won’t you be showing me your house?’ I asked in the pretext of sneaking in her bedroom.

             
‘Of course!’ She held my hand, tugging at it, and I meekly followed her.

             
We started with her bedroom. It was spotless and orderly in appearance, and there wasn’t even a single item that seemed out of place. There were a bunch of soft toys - some of them, I noted, my gifts to her of our previous dates - neatly arranged on the marble-white chester adjacent to her bed. The glossy white bed was tucked in one corner of the room draped by a flowery pink-colour bed sheet. Behind the bed, the wall was adorned by wallpaper – a delectable assortment of tiny flowers carved across it – that perfectly matched the purple rug, fuchsia curtains, and the bed sheet. To embellish the room further there were more than a couple of flower vases with well-tended roses and tulips. I couldn’t miss the shade of pink in them.

She collected one of her albums from a drawer
, and we began leafing through it on her bed. I lifted my hands and tucked the hair over her face behind her ears. Slowly, keeping the album aside, I leaned into her and took my lips closer to hers. She closed her eyes and I followed in quick succession. I felt her soft and pudgy lips on mine and for the next five minutes or so, the world beyond her didn’t exist. I gradually slipped my hands down, toward her breasts, and felt them. She made a muffled sound and tried to resist me. I accorded, only to further slid down my hands to remove her
kurta
. Instantly she scrambled away and our kiss ended.

             
‘No Ronit, we are not doing this,’ she warned.

             
‘Doing what?’ I said.

             
‘You know what, don’t act funny with me.’ She waggled a finger at me.

             
‘Okay, sorry.’ I got up feigning a morose expression and pretended to walk out.

             
‘I mean...um...you know…um…somebody might come,’ she spluttered.

             
There you go. I knew it.

I strode back and sa
t on the bed beside her. ‘No one will come, you yourself said that,’ I said encouragingly.

             
‘Yeah, but um…,’ she hesitated. ‘I’m not sure if the door is securely latched.’ She pointed her finger toward the door.

             
I returned back in her room a minute later affirming its locked position. We began kissing and this time it was the curtains that bothered her. Exasperated, I got up and drew them.

             
‘What if -’

             
But she didn’t complete whatever nonsense she was coming up with this time as I inserted my tongue deep in her mouth. I brought my hands close to the bottom of her
kurta,
pulled it upward, and thankfully this time she raised her arms in anticipation without a fuss. She then helped me with my shirt. I fumbled behind her back with the strap of her bra and she couldn’t resist her fit of giggles. With a wry smile she helped me with it. When it was undone, she coyly brought her arms close to her chest. I lifted her and settled her in my lap, then leaned backward resting my back on the bed. She was over me and we kissed passionately. I rolled my tongue over her ears and then glided it down at a snail’s pace to the back of her neck as she oohed and aahed. I slowly glided it down further to the front of her neck and further down.

I realize
d something was wrong as I still wasn’t stiff. I darted my eyes around and it definitely had to be the femininity of the room. We got up and I asked her to take this in Priyank’s room.

             
This time around I was tugging at her hand and she guided me from behind to my great batch mate’s room. I was aghast and stunned to find it the exact replica of her room. My mouth formed a perfect ‘O’ and it stayed that way for a full one minute. Or was it two?

             
‘What the hell are teddies and soft toys doing in a guy’s room?’

             
‘He loves them,’ she replied, covering her breasts with her arms.

             
‘And the pink colour all over?’

             
‘Pink is his favourite colour as well,’ she grinned in pride. ‘We have very similar likes and dislikes,’ she declared, nodding her head as though it were the most normal thing in the world.

             
Oh God, kill me!

I sh
ook my head and made a mental note in my head to laugh over it later with Joe Singh.

W
e entered his room and I made her lie on his bed first and then clambered over her. We continued kissing and slowly I inched below to her neck, breasts, and belly running my tongue playfully, and then upward, and then down again. I unbuttoned her jeans and slowly pulled it down exposing her beautiful legs. I lifted her buttocks to remove her panty which was - anybody’s guess - a pink colour with…
cute little bunnies all over it
…

W
ait a minute…Oh my God! That was exactly the same panty that Priyank wore which we’d removed to apply tooth paste in his…bum. Oh Lord, so they wear…identical panties?

I ma
de another mental note to tell this to Joe Singh later.

             
‘What happened, what are you thinking?’ Aisha asked, breaking my repugnant thought.

             
‘Nothing,’ I shrugged.

I let the thought pass and remove
d my clothes. Lying down beside her I took her in my arms. Our naked bodies entwined against each other and…we thought we heard something.

A doorbell!

              ‘Oh my God! Oh my God!’ she screamed in horror. ‘Who’s it this time, did I not tell you somebody might come.’ She leaped on the floor and hastily collected her clothes.

             
I tried to calm her and tiptoed toward the door. When I peeped through the tiny glass hole I was struck with revulsion.

It was
Priyank Bhatia! Perfect timing, asshole!

I tro
tted back inside nervously and informed Aisha. She managed to muffle her scream covering her mouth with her hands. We wore our clothes hurriedly and proceeded to the drawing room. I sat on the couch pretending to have a normal conversation.

             
‘Hey, look who’s here,’ Aisha greeted her brother histrionically as she opened the door. ‘Guess who’s come to meet you brother?’

             
‘Who? And why did you take so long to open the door?’ Priyank asked suspiciously as he entered.

             
‘It’s your batch mate Ronit!’ she announced, ignoring his second question.

             
Priyank turned round and I’ll never forget that look of horror on his face. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he screamed.

             
I narrowed my eyes at Aisha. ‘Thanks for having me over Aisha.’ I got up and started for the door.

             
‘Oh brother, he came to meet you, said he was in the neighbourhood, so thought of checking on his old batch mate,’ Aisha said, cocking her head toward me.

             
He’ll never buy this shit!

             
‘I don’t believe you sister.’ He shook his head and widened his eyes at me. ‘He’ll never come and meet me…something is wrong.’ He paused. ‘You remember I used to tell you sister about some guys in my institute who bullied me all the time...’ He trailed off, battling the lone tear in his eyes.

             
No, please don’t, please don’t say it
. I looked at Aisha who watched her brother in despair.

             
‘It was him!’ he said, pointing a baleful finger at me, ‘and one of his friends Joe.’ His throat tightened and his voice was hollow. ‘They used to tease me so much and…um…you know, the toothpaste thing I told you about…’ He struggled to speak and tears abound found their way out his eyes.

‘It was
them
! And then another time they splashed my underwear with itching powder. You know the entire day they laughed watching me scratch my…my balls. They even told…um…wait a minute…’ He paused and suddenly went silent. He glanced at me and Aisha back and forth a couple of times and then raised his eyebrows in shock and looked toward Aisha again.

             
‘OH MY GOD!’ he hollered as something hit him. ‘Is
he
the guy you have been dating you told me about...’ Amidst the tears, he was fuming now, ‘...and OH MY GOD! HAVE YOU GUYS BEEN HAVING SEX?’

He plunked
down dejectedly on the sofa, and sobbed profusely with long, heaving motions of his chest. ‘Oh my God, my own sister is…sleeping with…with...my
enemy!
’

             
I looked apologetically at Aisha who already had a look of hatred in her eyes. This was pretty much the reason I’d always managed to convince her not to tell about us to him. ‘Let the right time come, we’ll tell him then,’ I used to tell her.

She
joined her brother, sat beside him on the couch, and gently rubbed his back. ‘Sorry brother, I had no idea that was him.’ She looked at me with bloodshot eyes. ‘YOU GUYS PUT TOOTHPASTE IN HIS BUTT? SHAMEFUL!’ she said.

             
I tried very hard to stifle a laugh. Now that
did
sound funny. What sort of a brother would tell that to his sister?

Althou
gh I should have felt sorry for the scene unfolding in front of my eyes, but somehow, I managed to amuse myself by laughing within. I
have
to tell all this to Joe Singh. I made another mental note.
Phew! How many notes have I made already?

Alright
, time to clean the mess I made.

             
I walked over to Priyank and sat on the floor on my knees resting my arms on his laps. A few tear drops of his fell on my arms. ‘Look brother, I am sorry, very sorry for what I did three years back. We were kids back then and just having a good time. We didn’t mean to hurt you, and if at all we did, I’m really sorry from the bottom of my heart.