I take the wrap from her arm and drape it around her shoulders. She is cold.
‘Chivalrous!’ Lavanya says.
‘I forgot I had it with me,’ Aaditha coos, her hand going up to her head and massaging it lightly.
I’m beginning to feel the crowd around me.
‘Have you ladies had dinner?’
Aaditha throws her arms up and laughs. ‘All done,’ she says.
‘Are you here for coffee?’ she asks.
Whatever it is Aaditha Prathap and Lavanya Patil knocked back this evening, it has triggered a memory lapse while loosening tongues.
‘Dinner,’ I say, pointing randomly behind her.
‘We’ll walk with you,’ Aaditha says. Lavanya Patil nods; she seems happy to play along.
As Aaditha transfers her weight to one leg, her jeans ride up, and I notice her chunky footwear; she’s on a platform, literally. ‘You’re giving me a complex,’ I say as we dodge our way through the crowd.
Aaditha’s laughter is a roar.
As we move, I hear a commotion behind us. A man is shouting, ‘Sir, please, please stop.’ Aaditha tugs at my arm, and I turn to face a man madly waving his cell phone at us, asking us to stop.
‘Please, can you stand for a picture, sir, with ma’am and ma’am?’ he asks. He is addressing me, but he is no one I know.
I hold up my hand and look around for Ratan. He’s nowhere to be seen.
Aaditha slinks her arm through mine. ‘Don’t be a snob,’ she says, nudging my ribs with her elbow.
This is a whole different Aaditha Prathap, a 180-degree turn from the person I met in the morning.
We line up for a photograph. I’m at one end, and Lavanya is on the other. I inhale Aaditha’s seductive perfume; it fills my nostrils. Nodes of gardenia, or is it ylang-ylang? Jasmine, maybe?
I don’t know how many photos the man and a couple of others took before Aaditha’s phone rings. She answers and says something in Kannada that sounds likeBatra idly,bartha idi.
‘Kannada?’ I ask.
‘It’s Kannada,’ she replies, laughing.
‘That’s what I said.’
Her shoulders shift. ‘“A” is not silent.’
Ratan appears miraculously and sweeps us past a ginormous doorway that shuts behind us. He is marching us towards the dining area, along the secluded passage. Once we make ground, he steps back. We’ve lost Lavanya, too, somewhere behind the giant decorative pillars we have crossed.
Aaditha and I stop simultaneously. I’m facing Aaditha, whose palms are on my arms. She’s on her toes, gripping me hard; I feel her nails through my shirt. I’m drinking her scent; it’s definitely jasmine. I lower my head just as she reaches up and brushes her lips against mine, back and forth, her hips shifting against my crotch. She is looking at me now, smiling, admiring her handiwork perhaps. Her hands are still on my arms, digging deeper into me; her eyes are speaking a language I’m unsure if I should decipher.
I hear my groan as I wrap my hands around her back, my fingers knotted in the silken strands of her hair. I claim her lips in a kiss.
It is slow at first, lazy strokes, our mouths tasting each other’s spaces. Then the urgency grows with the little sounds coming out of us.We are each lost in the depths of the other, going hard and reaching for more. She exhales, and I inhale her breath. My legs part, and I pull her into me. We are hanging onto each other, unaware of the seconds that have swollen into minutes.
When I open my eyes, my lashes fan her face, tickling her. Aaditha opens her eyes and blinks.
I break the moment and step back, my heart thumping in a manner it had no business to. Aaditha’s smile is luminous.
‘You’ve had dessert before dinner, Your Highness,’ she says.
