My Last Love Story (31 page)

“You did before. You chose him before. I was a fluke, Simi. Had that night not happened—”

I pressed my fingers against his mouth to shut him up. “But it did happen. And I don’t want to discuss this anymore.”

We went to bed, exhausted by our talk, and I fell into a dream-filled sleep. I dreamed of horses galloping on the beach, of gods and goddesses brandishing thunderbolts and tridents and lovers and swans, of humans cowering in fear under their wrath, of the first scene in the movie
Troy
in which Brad Pitt roused between two naked bodies.

I bolted up in bed, my heart pounding. I looked about for naked bodies and thunderbolts but found only my pajama-clad husband beside me. I pressed a hand to my racing heart, not sure if I was relieved or disappointed. I slid off the bed and padded into the bathroom where I took care of my morning business. I brushed my teeth and my hair and went to wake up my own Brad Pitt.

I blew into his ear. No reaction.

Nirvaan used to be ticklish around his neck and ears. Now, parts of his body weren’t exactly desensitized so much as slow to react to stimuli.

I bit his earlobe and got the reaction I wanted.

In one smooth motion, he started awake, pulled me down, rolled, and had me pinned to the bed. I squealed with laughter. His muscles might be weaker than before, but they were still harder and larger than mine. He completely trapped me beneath his sleep-warm body.

“You want to play, huh?” he asked, sleep deepening his voice into a growl.

“I woke you up to watch the sunrise, but since you asked so cutely…yes,” I replied before licking a path across his collarbone.

He rolled off and sat up on the edge of the bed, his back to me. I tried not to feel rejected.

Oh, to hell with it.
I knelt behind him, wrapping my arms about him. “Please don’t say no today.”

He stood up, and giving me a slanted smile, he stepped toward the drawer where his little blue pills were. He took one out, popped it into his mouth, and dry-swallowed it.

“Open the curtains, Wife. I want to watch the sunrise, too,” he commanded as he strode into the bathroom, scratching his bum.

I gave a triumphant, “Whoop!” and danced to the windows to draw the curtains open. Back I danced into the bathroom to watch Nirvaan race through his morning ablutions.

I admired the turn of his wrist as he brushed his teeth and gargled and spit. The way his pecs—softer now than a few months ago—jumped when he splashed water on his face. At the last minute, he detoured into the shower and thoroughly washed himself. I smiled, guessing what he wanted from me.

I made him sit on the closed commode as I dried him. I rubbed him down, dabbing water from inside his ears, under his armpits, between his legs. He was as naked as the day he was born. And I was still in pajamas.

He took my hand and led me back to our bed. He sat down on the edge, drawing me between the V of his legs. I stood, looking down at my handsome husband. I drew my fingers over the arch of his forehead, down his cheekbone, and rasped the rough skin on his jaw and lip with my thumb. I leaned in to lick his lips, but his eyes shifted to the damask curtain posing as our bedroom door.

I turned my head, knowing Zayaan would be standing there. It was time to watch the sunrise, wasn’t it? I closed my eyes. I couldn’t bear the thought of him watching us now. I used to love him watching us before when I had no fear or inhibitions or guilt or shame. I had no words for what I felt right now. The past and the present collided inside me. A simple yes from me, and they would merge.

I opened my eyes, and the curtain was drawn closed, swaying slightly, as if a breeze and not a gentle hand had trifled with it. I sighed, wishing Khodai would stop playing games with me.

Nirvaan caught my hand and brought it to his lips. He firmly held me to him, as if he expected me to bolt.

Bolt where? Out there? To Zayaan?
Ha.

“When you came back to Surat after three years in Mumbai, I thought…I hoped you were ready to let go of the past. I called Zayaan and told him we should go to India to see you. He booked his ticket before we’d hung up the phone. But his mother fell ill, and he had to cancel at the last minute. He didn’t even get a refund on the ticket. He wanted to come, Simi. He doesn’t know about the rest. I haven’t told him. He believed Surin. He thinks your brother was correct in trying to protect you from gossip. He stayed away to save your reputation. His family was tainted by scandal, and he wanted to make something of himself before he came for you. So, you could be proud of him. He was going to ask you to wait for him, to marry him as soon as he was on his feet. He loves you, Simi. So very much. He loves you more than I do.”

To shut him up, I kissed Nirvaan harder than I’d meant, and our teeth clashed. “Don’t. Don’t you dare say such a thing. Don’t you dare measure and compare your love.”

“It’s the truth, baby. And you love him more than you love me. And here’s another truth. I don’t mind. I love that about you. I loved how bold you were at fifteen. How willing you were to step outside the box. Zayaan used to be like that, too. Don’t you remember?”

Our eyes clashed as our teeth had. I knew what my husband was asking. I wanted it, too. I always had.

“Used to be, Nirvaan. You said it yourself. We were children. We didn’t know whether we were coming or going.”

“But we’re adults now, and we do know what we want.” Sometimes, Nirvaan was like a predator, calmly hiding in the bushes, and when his prey drew close, he’d pounce.

Was a threesome what he truly desired? Why wouldn’t he just come out and say it? Why was he driving me crazy with innuendo?

“Fine. If that’s what you really want,” I said as I withdrew from him.

His mouth fell open at my sudden capitulation. I was thrilled by his unsure reaction and had to clench my jaw tight not to laugh or even smile. Not so gung-ho now, was he?

I strolled out of the room, and I would’ve whistled had I known how. I had my answer, and I knew what I had to do.

My eyes adjusted quickly to the darkness of the living room. Sure enough, Zayaan was standing in front of the patio doors, looking out at the wakening beach, his prayer book in his hand.

As well be hung for a sheep as a lamb
, my father would’ve said.

“Zai,” I softly called out.

His shoulders stiffened before he slowly turned around. Tension wafted off him in such thick waves that I could’ve sliced it off with a butcher knife. I’d never been more grateful for the dark. I couldn’t see his eyes or expression. I didn’t want to know if they held curiosity or hope or arousal or all of it. It was enough that I felt it all. It was enough to scare me solid.

“Can you please pray later?” I asked of him. “I want you to go for a walk. Don’t come back for two hours.”

I didn’t wait to see if he went. I knew he would.

I went back to my husband and explained something to him. “Imagine I’m an ocean. You are the bright sunlit part of me, and Zayaan, the darker depths. I need you both to be who I am. I love you both. Always have. Always will. But, Nirvaan, you are my last love story. I don’t want another one.”

Then, I pushed my husband down on the bed and stripped off my nightgown.

Maybe it was our confessions. Maybe it was that I’d clearly chosen Nirvaan when I could’ve had both. Maybe we both knew time was running out. Whatever it was, for the first time in years, our lovemaking was free of expectation, free of ghosts, and therefore, it was spontaneous.

I explored my husband’s body, slowly and thoroughly. His body wasn’t a surprise to me. When you’d nursed a man through an illness, his body wasn’t a secret from you. I had bathed Nirvaan in showers and in tubs, sponged him off when he was too weak to lift a finger. I’d fed him food, cleaned his sores, wiped his bum, and buzzed wild hair from his nose and other places. So, yes, I knew his body intimately.

But sex was a different kind of intimacy. It wasn’t one-sided. It was pleasure, given and taken. A mutual gratification of love and promises, shared and renewed.

Except for the first few times we’d made love, Rizvaan’s ghost had never climbed into my marriage bed. Zayaan had. I’d thought he always would. But he didn’t come into my mind this morning. Or, he came but he didn’t stay. Nirvaan loved me so thoroughly that I had no room to think of anyone else. My senses could only moan and demand and gasp.

“Again,” I begged. I was utterly spent, I could barely talk, but greed was something that could never be satisfied. There was a time limit to my greed, so I was ravenous.

My husband said nothing. Did nothing.

I opened one eye. It was all I could manage. The wicked, wicked man sat cross-legged by my hip, grinning down at me.

“You’ve always liked that, haven’t you?” He raised a rakish brow up, looking very much like a pirate in front of a treasure chest.

“Again. Please?”

My good husband didn’t make me beg a third time. He swooped down, and ever generous with his pirate’s bounty, he gave me what I needed.

I left Nirvaan sleeping to get coffee. I’d slept, too, and woken up with a pounding headache. Orgasms could cause headaches—the good doctors said so—but I thought mine was due to caffeine withdrawal.

I filled my Eeyore mug with coffee, took a couple of sips, blew on it, took a couple of more sips, and felt partially human again. The sun was up. The day had dawned. We’d not exactly seen the sunrise, but we’d done an in-depth study on the variegated effects of sunrays on body parts. I grinned and took another gulp of coffee. We planned to make it our morning ritual.

My eyes fell on Zayaan’s prayer book discarded on the lounger and I sighed, my grin fading. I supposed I owed him an apology. I shouldn’t have come out in all that state and thrown him out of the house. He wouldn’t have dared come into the room after peeping in once. But I’d wanted to make a bold statement. I hoped I had.

But why wasn’t he back? I’d asked for two hours of privacy. It was now past three hours.

My eyes scanned the beach and caught his windblown figure standing thigh-deep in the waves. There was something about the stark picture he made—his posture, his banishment—that tugged on my heart.

Before I knew it, I’d set the mug down on the coffee table, and I was flying down the beach, my robe flapping at my ankles.

“Zayaan, what are you doing?” My gut pushed an apology to my throat, like the waves pushing at the sand beneath my feet. Quick as a wink, it receded—the wave, the sand beneath my feet, the apology stuck in my throat.

He turned to me. He was wet from his head down, his white
kurta pajama
transparent against his body.

“Did you go swimming with your clothes on?”

Zayaan was a strong swimmer. He’d swum out to the lighthouse and back once, the whole expedition taking a couple of hours, while Nirvaan and I’d trailed him on Jet Skis.

I shook my head in disbelief. Zayaan was pragmatic, not stupid. He wouldn’t have gone swimming without a chaperone. So, why was my gut writhing like snakes again?

He pushed through the lapping waves, coming at me. The sun hit him full on the face, flaming him up. I should’ve run. I should’ve broken his pursuit of me—and it was a pursuit even though I was standing still. If it wasn’t broad daylight, if I didn’t know Rizvaan was dead, I might’ve panicked. Zayaan looked fierce. Enraged. I wanted to run.