Whispers of the Past - 2
Being with Nisha, one more time
Previously
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2
“You have always said it.”
“But it’s true,” I said, “what do you want to have?”
“Umm, the same we used to have,” she smiled. It was a wistful smile. Nostalgia about the simplest of things is sweet. Even if it’s as simple as a cappuccino with an extra shot of espresso.
While I was giving the order, I looked back at her. She wasn’t on her phone. Instead, she was looking at me. From the angle I was standing, I could see the silhouette of her breasts, despite that loose top. It helped that I had seen her naked, that I had cupped those breasts countless times. I smiled back at her. I had decided to wait for the drink to be ready, instead of getting interrupted again when the drink was finally ready.
“Thank you,” she said softly. She accentuated her lips when she said it.
When I was seated, I said, “So, how have you been?”
She sipped her coffee. She shook her head, and covered her lips. The coffee was too hot for her.
“Do you need some water?” I asked her.
She shook her head, and took a tissue from the pile of tissues that was on my side.
“I am well. Mostly,” she said, blinking her eyes.
I chuckled.
“How is Adish?”
“He’s good. They are away. The entire family is away,” she sipped her coffee again, that time, more carefully. Nisha had a light red lipstick on. Her lips, which were naturally sensual, looked even more so, in that lipstick. When she kept her cup down, I could see her lipstick smudge on the lid of the cup.
“Including the baby?” I said.
“She’s not a baby anymore,” Nisha smiled, lowering her gaze. I pursed my lips, and gave an embarrassed smile.
“I know, I mean, she’s with the father?” I said.
I don’t choose words carelessly. Not in two sentences in a row.
She looked up at me. And then away. And then she smiled.
“We both know, that she’s not with her father,” Nisha said, leaning back on her chair, smiling.
I glanced at her breasts, and then said, “You know what I mean,” I said, returning her smile.
“Yes, she’s away too. I was supposed to be away too. But I was feeling sick. So, we cancelled my tickets. It’s just one day. They would be back tomorrow afternoon.”
“One day is a long time.”
She smiled, “Tell me, how is Nidhi? I was expecting to meet her too.”
“Oh, she’s away for work. And yes, I would have liked her meeting you.”
“Oh my God, I was kidding. Wait,” Nisha’s eyes widened, “You have told her about me?”
I shrugged, “I love her. I tell her everything.”
“You mean…?”
“Yes,” I said, and quickly added, “She’s cool. Chill.”
“I…” Nisha was lost for words, “Why did you never tell me about this?”
“When would I do that? We barely talk. And, it’s not something that I can text about. What if somebody saw it?”
“Yeah! That’s my point exactly! And you have told your girlfriend,” she leaned forward, lowering her voice, “That me and my husband are raising your child? I mean —”
“Just calm down, Nisha. When you meet her, you would know that these things are not something that gets her bothered. I mean, she reads everything that I write. And —”
“What? She has read that story? About how you…?”
“That, and more,” I sighed. Maybe, I should have simply lied. Lying is so easy. You step over so many problems. It’s like the easiest FIFA dribble to get past obstacles.
Nisha was quiet for a moment. She picked up her cup, sipped it, looking around. I could have really used a cigarette then. It’s not always easy to find women with whom you can be completely honest. Especially those whom you have fucked or want to fuck.
“So, how have you really been?” I asked Nisha.
She held her cup, and puffed her cheeks.
“I am okay. Life’s been difficult. But things are looking up,” she said.
It was pretty much a non-answer. But you have to work with what you got.
“And, if I may ask, what about you and Adish? Have you two worked things out?”
“Uhh… I don’t know. We are okay. We fight less than we used to. Most of our conversations are around our daughter,” she looked at me when she said ‘our’. I nodded. “It’s alright, I guess. We have been married for 5 years now. It seems a lifetime ago that I was single.”
“Indeed,” I said, “It doesn’t feel like it has been five years, from our days of coffee here.” I looked around the Starbucks. “It feels the same and yet different.”
Nisha looked at me. She appeared to be thinking of something.
“You know, in all that time, which we spent talking about girls you were with, the girls whom you want to be with —”
“My projects, you mean,” I said. I chuckled. Not the best choice of words, but that’s what I used to call the girls I was trying to sleep with. It’s an awful term, I agree. But, well, I was younger and more stupid.
“— yes, your projects,” she continued, smiling, “So, when you talked about your projects, I always wondered, why you were so restless about women. But, I understand now.”
“You do?”
Nisha was talking about me, in my mid-twenties. I had recently come to Bombay. The city, so big, so beautiful and so many women. I didn’t start dating right away. I was in love then, when I had come to the city. Her name was Aradhana. The only problem was, she was in a city a thousand kilometers away. And of course, she had a boyfriend, with whom she would patch up, pretty much once a month. But I loved her.
Nisha and I started our careers together. She was cute. She is one of the few women with whom, I speak in “Tu”, rather than “Tum”. It’s an awkward choice really, all these second person pronouns. But I have always considered these choices important when addressing a woman, especially, if I wanted to cup their naked breasts some day.
With Nisha, it was always a “Tu”. I had talked about Aradhana at length with her. She would console me on my worst days. And then, when I started dating in Bombay, fed up with this constant on-and-off thing with Aradhana, I would tell her about these girls, about what they did, how I met them, and where I intend to take them.
I would never be explicit, but mostly about what I liked about them. She would never ask for their pictures. She would smile and sometimes tell me what would I do if the girl (the project) would say this. I would tell her about my really bombastic projects. Like about a girl who lived in Surat, who was two years older than me. Nisha would ask me why I needed someone from Surat. “She has these eyes, which always seemed to shine.”
I would tell her about Aliva. “I wish to spend this Valentines with her.” I would said. I eventually did spend the valentine’s day with her. But, I wouldn’t say it was the kind of sex that I remember much about. I was shit-drunk. And she, was more interested in taking a drive at 3 AM, in my new car. We didn’t drive of course, and she left early in the morning. I would edit these stories, when telling them to Nisha, to either make it funnier or sexier, mostly funnier. You can say that Nisha was my first reader.
“You wanted to find someone who was right for you,” she said.
“Umm… isn’t everyone doing that?”
“They are. But they don’t have the patience to waste all this energy in knowing people. And I don’t know anyone else, who keeps Evernote pages on girls they are texting,” Nisha laughed, “Wait, do you still do it?”
I do it in Notion now, but that’s just a technicality. I nodded.
“Oh my God!”
I have missed seeing Nisha laugh that way. She laughed with her entire body. She would hunch her shoulders, she would cover mouth, she will smile with her eyes. And her eyes, they will look straight at you, when she was laughing.
“Did you ever have a page on me?” she asked, after settling down and sipping her coffee.
“I cannot confirm or deny that.”
“That means you do!”
“No, I mean… why would you think that?”
“I don’t know. I hope you did. I have always wondered, why you never told me anything before I got married. We have sat here countless times, ate together countless times, I have spent so much time at your place, and you at mine. All that, before even talks of my marriage had started, and way before, we started our thing. Why did you never ask me out?”
Why indeed, I thought.
I don’t have an erotic answer for this. I don’t have a witty answer for this either. Nisha was my place to fall back to. During the days of heartbreaks and bad dates, I knew I could knock her door, and vent my frustration. I didn’t know whom I would talk about those things, if I ever asked Nisha out. If I ever fucked her.
Later, when, we eventually started fucking, it was different. I was different by then. I had changed a lot, between the time she was talking about and the time we were fucking, to give her a baby. We never dated, Nisha and I. Yet, I have finished inside her, countless times. I didn’t need a net to fall back on by then. I had a system to deal with such things. But, 5 years ago, if you had asked me if I would fuck Nisha, I would say No. Not because I didn’t want to. Especially when she would walk around in those tight jeans, with all the right kind of fat on her ass. But I needed her then. As a friend.
I sighed, and said, “I don’t have an answer for that. But, if we dated, do you think, we would have done what we did?”
Nisha chewed on her lips, thinking. “Too many ifs,” she said.
I inhaled deeply. I was almost done with the coffee. It was close to 0130 PM by then.
“You didn’t answer my question though. What I was asking is, do you have a boyfriend?”
“What? No!” Nisha seemed scandalized. Her face, suddenly stern. That shouldn’t have been a surprise for someone who has carried around in her belly, the symbol of her stepping outside her marriage.
“Okay, okay,” I said, raising my hands, apologetically.
“Why would you ask that?”
“I don’t know. I have wanted to meet you for a long time. To call you over to my place. Maybe meet at a hotel. I never did. Maybe, deep down, I expected this answer from you,” I said. It was a lie though. I didn’t call, because, well, there were other women.
“What sort of answer?”
“That you have been loyal to your husband,” I said.
Nisha and I looked at each other. The Starbucks seemed to have fallen silent. What Nisha and I had done, was more than just lust. Maybe Nisha liked me. But at the end of the day, it was an arrangement, an arrangement for Nisha to get what she wanted.
I sighed, and sipped my coffee. We were quiet. My phone buzzed. It was Nidhi. She was asking me what I was up to.
“Having a cup of coffee,” I replied.
“Don’t bring these girls to our bed. I wouldn’t know if you, but just don’t do it,” Nidhi replied.
“I won’t,” I replied, smiling.
“What happened?” Nisha asked me.
“Nothing. It’s Nidhi. She was telling me not to bring you to our bed,” I kept the phone away.
Nisha’s mouth gaped a little, perhaps surprised.
“So, what do are we doing for the rest of the day? When do you plan to drive back?” I asked Nisha.
“I don’t know. It’s been ages since I have passed my time, going around the city. You tell me.”
I paused for a moment, before saying what I have wanted to say over texts.
“Let’s check-in.”
Nisha licked her upper lip. She glanced at her watch. While she was quiet, I continued, “We can go for lunch, and then probably watch a movie, but it would be a hassle. Instead, we can get comfy on a bed, maybe watch a movie, and talk, for a change?” I said.
I picked up my phone, and started looking for hotels nearby.
“But, I…”
“Here,” I showed her a property. It was a 5-minute drive from where we were. A large posh bed, a cozy room, and a curvy woman like Nisha. I honestly couldn’t have found better things to do in the city.
“Okay,” she replied after a beat. Her voice was soft, hesitant but not opposed.
Nisha and I drove in our respective cars. As I drove, the events that happened three years ago flashed in front of my eyes. It was a different time then. Nisha had come to me with a proposal. She wanted my cum. She wanted me to put a baby inside her. The first time I had fucked her, I had stripped her naked in the living room, fucked her mouth, before pumping my cum inside her pussy. She was timid and quiet.
That day, the power seemed to have shifted. I wanted Nisha more than she wanted me. I cannot explain to you why I wanted Nisha. Maybe she reminded me of a time when my life was less complicated. Of a time, when all I cared about was fucking and cumming. These are still the things that I care about, but now that I am older, maybe I look for intimacy more than a good fuck.
Even when I was with Gurleen, Anvi and Nargis, those three young girls, I wanted more than just to fuck them. I wanted to look inside them, to peel the superficial layers of their attractive bodies.
We reached the parking lot of the hotel. Nisha parked the car beside me. When we walked in the hotel lobby, I noticed the security guard checking us out. It was an illicit affair — a man and a woman getting off their respective cars. I wondered what the guard thought. He probably figured that we were both married. To different people. That we were there at the hotel to fuck, to express our illicit love. It was illicit, but there was no love. At least, not the kind that most people think.
Once in the room, I closed the door behind us. Nisha went around the room, checking the switches. The room was large, especially considering that we would be spending maybe 4-5 hours there. It was an overkill, but I am done with the pesky problems of finding of budget hotels.
I looked at the bed — a king-sized bed, with plush pillows. Spotless white sheets, with a promise of passion and desire.
Nisha kept her tote at the desk, and typed something on her phone. She walked to the edge of the bed, and sat down. She was looking at the window. We didn’t have a view, but she could see the sky. She seemed lost in her thoughts.
I took out my wallet, car keys, my packet of Marlboros and my lighter, and kept them on the table. I like to keep things in a row, especially in a hotel. To empty your pockets, is an intimate things. It’s a precursor to be comfortable in bed, and ultimately naked.
It was close to 2 PM by then. I took my phone and slid in the other side of the bed.
I could see Nisha from behind. I love seeing women from behind. The way their body curves, the way the fabric of their clothes hug their bodies. With Nisha, even in her loose top, I could make out her body. I could make out where I should be holding her in the waist, for the best grip. She held the edge of the bed, and swung her feet.
“Should we order something to eat? And maybe drink?” I said.
“Oh God, yes. I was wondering why I was feeling restless,” she glanced at her watch, “I don’t have to drive for a while. Let’s have a few drinks.”
I took the menu book from the side table. Room service menus are usually fluffed up. I gave it a perfunctory flip, and dialed the number.
I ordered a plate of appetizers, and two plates of spaghetti. “Make one extra spicy, and the other less so.”
And for alcohol, I told them to get the best wine they had. Nisha glanced at me when I ordered that.
“Since when did you start drinking wine?” she asked me.
“You have always liked it. It’s also more chill than my usual whisky.”
She inhaled sharply while nodding. She pushed her sandals down and raised her feet and got comfortable in the bed. She had her hands on her lap, her knees bent.
“What are you thinking?” I asked.
“Nothing really,” she said.
I looked around in the ceiling, to double check if this was indeed a smoking room. I decided to wait a little before I lit my cigarette.
“Nisha, listen, we don’t have to do anything. It’s simply more chill to hangout here. We —”
She quickly turned to me and said, “I know. It’s just that I have not done this in a while.”
“Done what in a while?”
“To be in a room, with another man,” she looked at me. Her eyes looked beautiful then, her neck outstretched. That delicate fair neck, which bruised all too easily.
“It’s me,” I said.
“Especially you.”
She sighed.
“Me and Adish, are in an okay place. In all this time, it has never even occurred to me —”
“How often do you guys fuck?”
She glared at me.
“What? It wasn’t long ago that you would tell me that,” I said.
“I know. But, it’s more than fucking,” she said.
“Is it… love?”
“God, no,” she laughed, and scratched her eyebrow.
She didn’t have much jewellery on her. No bangles. Just a small earring. I hadn’t noticed before because the top covered it, but I could see the black stones of her mangalsutra. I wondered if it is the same one which I had sometimes glazed with my cum. With Nisha, I rarely came anywhere other than inside her. In the instances that I did cum on her face or on her breasts, it was a statement that we didn’t just fuck to make her pregnant. She didn’t like that much.
“It’s… stability, I think,” Nisha frowned, thinking hard.
I exhaled, and got out of the bed. As I was taking out a cigarette, she said, “I thought you quit.”
I put a cigarette between my lips, and said, “I did, till I didn’t.” I lit my cigarette. I took my first drag. When I used to smoke countless cigarettes, the first drag wouldn’t be so special. But, it was 2 PM, and it was only my second cigarette. I looked around the hotel, till I found the ashtray. It was a simple glass ashtray. I took it and walked back to the bed.
“Why haven’t you proposed Nidhi yet?”
I took a moment to think, and then shrugged, “It’s something that I haven’t thought much about. It’s one thing to do what I do, when we are in a relationship. An open marriage is a whole different beast.”
“Remember that sticker you had on your apartment door?”
“Hmm?” I asked.
“Never Settle?”
“Oh!”
Nisha was talking about the sticker that I had come with my first OnePlus phone.
“I had said that it was a bad sticker. To never settle,” she said.
“Yeah, yeah. I remember now. But it was in a different context.”
“But still, it seems you have taken it to your heart.”
I had nothing to say to that. I reached for the remote, and turned on the TV. I browsed to MTV, and let the music play.
“Give one, I want to smoke too,” Nisha said.
“You sure? I wouldn’t want to waste a perfectly good cigarette on you.”
“Shut up!”
I gave her a cigarette and lit it for her.
Nisha held it elegantly, but right after the first drag, coughed hard.
I laughed. I took the ashtray to the center of the bed. Nisha shrugged off some of the ash. She was laughing too. As she coughed, I noticed how her breasts jiggled. My eyes lingered on her chest, before I looked up.
“Did you always look at me like this, even at work?” She asked me, as she dared another drag.
“Look like what?”
“You know what I am talking about.”
I smoked my cigarette and said, “I have always loved your ass. You had a bounce to you when you walked. And the kind of clothes you wore, the way they hugged your breasts… it was difficult not to look at you like that,” I said.
The bell rang. I let the guy in. He came in with a large plate. I told him to put it down on the table. After he left, I told Nisha, “Let’s eat at the table? It’s more civilized that way.”
We served ourselves. The spaghetti was tasty, better than I have had in many places. I poured us half glasses of wine. We clinked our glasses, and ate our lunch in silence.
Nisha crossed her legs as she ate, her thick thighs, squashed together. I saw her turning the spaghetti around the fork and slurp the noodles in. It was mesmerizing. Nisha had the kind of lips, which were thick and raised. And seeing those noodles make their way inside her was, oddly erotic.
I was done with my spaghetti before Nisha. I kept my plate away, took the glass of wine and sipped it. I got up from the chair and took out a cigarette. I walked back to the chair in front of Nisha, with a lit cigarette between my fingers.
The tension in the room was a tangible entity, intermingling with the aroma of spaghetti and the tart scent of wine. After she finished eating, Nisha took a sip of her wine and placed the glass down. Her fingers traced the rim, the red liquid swirling in sync with the thoughts circling in her mind.
“You know, it’s not fair,” Nisha broke the silence, her voice barely more than a whisper.
“What isn’t?” I asked.
“This… You and me. This isn’t fair to Adish, to our daughter… to anyone.”
Her words hung in the air, a reminder of the clandestine nature of our relationship. I watched as she took another sip of her wine, her throat working as she swallowed. My gaze lingered on her neck, the same neck I had left my mark on countless times before. The same neck, which I would choke with passion as I was on top of her, fucking her till I would fill her up with my cum.
“But is it fair to us?” I retorted, not defensively, but genuinely questioning. “To suppress what we feel, to just let it fester inside?”
She didn’t answer immediately. The ticking of the clock on the wall punctuated the silence, amplifying the heavy truth in my words. I got up, walked over to her chair, and ran my fingers through her hair, tilting her head slightly to meet my eyes. My cigarette burned away in my other hand.
“Look, Nisha,” I started, my voice softer now. “I can’t pretend to know what goes on in your mind. But I do know this… what we had, what we have… it’s real. And sometimes, it's the things that aren't supposed to happen that feel the most real. In this hotel room, right now, all I could think of is how it would be like to touch you again, to be touched by you again.”
I leaned in closer, my lips just inches from hers. I could see her pupils dilate, her breathing hitch slightly. She parted her lips, about to say something, but stopped herself, biting down on her lower lip. The silent question hung between us. It was a moment of decision.
Slowly, I moved my hand from her hair, tracing a line down her cheek, her throat, and finally resting on her chest, feeling the fast rhythm of her heartbeat. My hand was on her breast, those soft and big breasts, the ones which I was craving to cup.
"Life is filled with risks, Nisha,” I whispered, my voice low and husky. “And to never settle, is to take risks”
The room fell silent again. We were on the precipice, the tension between us teetering on the edge. And then, she reached up, placing her hand over mine. The silent acceptance was more than enough answer. Today was not about decisions or consequences. It was about us, about reliving the electrifying connection we had once shared, about rekindling that flame. Today was not about Nisha being a loyal wife. It was about being a woman to her child’s father.
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