I step out, fully aware of my nakedness. He steps out, never leaving my gaze. We are outside the car, the two of us, fully ourselves, ready to give in to each other.
‘I love you,’ I tell him.
‘... I absolutely don’t,’ he says. ‘Love doesn’t cut what I feel for you.’
He turns me towards the car.
‘Spread your legs,’ he says.
I shiver and move to obey, but he grabs my wrists and pins them against the hood of the car.
‘Stay still.’
A chill runs down my spine as I feel him enter me from behind. He thrusts himself into me as I murmur encouragement; he grinds into me, bringing back a string of memories, from the Andamans to the cold nights I have spent thinking of him. Once again, he is too rough and too gentle at the same time, and everything melds into pleasure. We shudder against each other.
Instinct takes over, and in an instant, we realize where we are.
The next fifteen seconds are spent in frantically dressing up inside the car even as our bodies are far from recovering from what we have just experienced. He leans towards me and gives me a gentle kiss on the forehead, his lips lingering for a few brief seconds. He looks into my eyes and says with a slight smirk, ‘We should do this again.’
‘We should do this all the time.’
‘We should do it all our lives.’
14.
Daksh Dey
Aanchal and I find ourselves in a basement again.
This time it’s the dimly-lit, damp basement parking of a mall in Paschim Vihar that doesn’t have a lot of takers. A hundred rupees to the parking lot attendant and he has agreed to look theother way. I argued that my car is cleaner than an OYO and that using a nice hotel for a few hours when you have paid for a day is a wasteful overkill. It’s of course a lie. The real reason is that there’s a risk and a thrill in taking her wherever and whenever I want her. To hear her say yes every time I suggest a new place I want to fuck her is a huge turn-on. And so it is for her, and that just makes it so much better. Today we finished quicker; with every time we are gaining intimate knowledge about each other’s bodies, but it felt like it lasted longer. And so now we are wrapped in a blanket she thoughtfully brought and we are watching an episode ofTarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmaas background noise.
‘Just a few more days,’ she whispers into my chest. ‘... for the holiday of our lifetime.’
‘Still feels surreal,’ I respond. ‘Like we skipped all those years between Mumbai and now.’
Aanchal and I have been up for nights in a row, sneaking out of our homes, going to the roof of our building and researching about our trip—all the countries we will cover, coffee shops in Paris to visit, tourist landmarks in Italy to check off the list, places to party in Barcelona that are open till the morning. We can’t wait to leave. It’s the beginning of the rest of our lives.
‘Did Gaurav say anything about this to you?’
‘You know he worships you,’ she says. ‘Anyway, Gaurav’s been working too hard to care about all this.’
‘Tejal told me they are looking for tournaments that would take him,’ I say. ‘It’s been hard.’
‘But he’s trying, that’s what matters. His fingers are sore, he’s up at all times of the day and night,’ she says.
We have all taken a collective sigh of relief seeing Gaurav find his purpose again.
She continues, ‘But about you and me, he thinks we are perfect.’
‘We are far from it. We are the opposite of perfect.’
‘That’s the best part about us. We have seen the worst,’ she says and plants a kiss on my shoulder. ‘So things can only getbetter.’
I hold her close.
‘I don’t want to ever let go of you.’
‘You have to be crazy to think I’m letting you go.’
