Committed

Creative Writing Competition 2012 India
CODE	464
SETTING	Terrace OR Bedroom OR Living Hall
OBJECT	Cell Phone
THEME	Infidelity

Love Short Story – Committed

After three and a half long months we were to meet each other.  I had dressed myself in that brown T that he liked the most seeing me into.  I remembered how his eyes used to roll in appreciation when he used to see me in that Brown T and Blue denims.  To have a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I traveled from the bed to the dressing table in that minuscule bedroom of Flat room no. 306 at C.G.Road where I had been waiting, to meet the man of my dreams, for three and a half long months.

‘It’s been a long time’, I said to my reflection.

‘How much he would have missed me!’

I smiled recollecting the intimate love we had shared for three long years.  With my shy eyes and folded hands, I prayed he would come anytime soon. The room was a little cold. I thought to myself that global warming was really going to bring the ice age, as I hadn’t seen this cold temperature in April anytime earlier.  And, I suddenly realized I had to board the 10 o’clock bus back home and it was 8:30 already.

The door bell rang. My heart beats fastened. I realized I was smiling cheerfully. I bit my right hand pinky.  And traveled towards the door which was 20 feet away from the royal dressing table that I had been seeing my reflection into…   Moving towards the door, I kept telling myself,

‘I will hit him for such a delay.  I will strangulate him by throat’ and I kept smiling.

I opened the door.  He was there, holding his cell and typing some text.  I got quiet.

‘Ab andar aa jaaun? (Should I now come in?)’, he asked commandingly.

I moved my feet aside the entrance path and stood behind that opened door holding the knob.  He entered inside that miniscule room and took his seat on the large sized bed, as if he owned the room.  I used to like this quality of ownership that he had endowed himself with.  After all, a man is always more attractive if he is authoritative.

And he said, ‘Wahin khade rehne ka irada hain? (Do you intend to just stand there?)’

I smiled and closed the door behind me and sat beside him.

He looked at me straight into my eyes and said, ‘Tabiyat theek nahin hai kya? Aankhen kyon itni yellow hain? (Are you not feeling well? Why are your eyes yellowish?)’

I replied with my typical Eve gesture, ‘How does it matter to you?’ and lowered my eyes and moved my neck in direction opposite to his face.  He realized I was angry at him.

He said, ‘It’s too much work here!’

And with his large right hand he shifted my head towards him.  I soon realized his left hand touching my waist on my left.  My lips had dried.  I had gulped down a lot of my waiting.  He moved closer towards me and said,

‘I miss you too, all the times, but it’s a lot of work, you understand, don’t you?’

I moved my head and rested it on his shoulder and said, ‘It is difficult to stay apart for so long intervals’.

I realized that he had moved both his hands on my waist.  We smiled looking into each others’ eyes.  His eyes suddenly showed some grief.  I asked him why he had a worrying gesture.

‘I am worried about the career front.  Don’t know where will I end up?  Till the career isn’t set, can’t make important life decisions.’

It’s good if your man is a little sentimental.  That way, he always understands you.

I said, ‘Don’t worry. We will do it together.’

And we both smiled back again.  I always liked his rubbing of fingers on my navel.  For hours together, we would spend moments like that.

Suddenly I realized something and got up and went to the dressing table.  Looking at my reflection I told myself,

‘Why can’t we both start living together?’

His gestures moved a little.  I could see the tensed face of my man.  He walked towards me.  And came and stood behind me. We both appeared in the reflection.  I was thinking, how perfect we two looked together.  Nothing in this world was comparable to a happy reflection of a loving pair.  He laid his left hand on my shoulder and right on my waist and said, ‘Don’t know how to get out of the past errors…’ and rested his neck on my right.

I said, ‘When will you tell her? I feel suffocated.  I see her every day.  It makes me feel guilty. I feel like the other woman.’

I grew dimmed at that moment.  With equally dimmed eyes, he said,

‘The invitations for the big day have already been sent.  How will I now back out?’

I grew heavier.  He brought me into the periphery of his Adonis legs.  And hold me tightly with his two Adam hands.  He would always treat me as his territory.   And I always gave him that comfort of his own.  I felt safe that way.  Secured… Protected… Defeated though but alleviated then too.  But this time, I felt deviated.  He realized the notion and assuring he said, ‘Kuch karta hun jaldi hi… (I will do something soon!)’

I got a scary feeling.  I felt innumerably low.  It was a question of recognition of our relationship.

I said, ‘Kya hamesha ek second hand rishta rahega? (Will this always be a second hand relationship?) Do you think I deserve this?’

He grew quiet.  And then suggested something that I had never expected of him…

‘Why can’t we stay like this forever? The love between us is divine. We know that. And I can never be so strong enough to get myself out of the mess I had created years ago. I like it this way. I think you too get married. We both can then live happily sharing the love we have.’  I became silent.  Rather, I must say, I was made silent.

Soon, I realized he was moving his lips on my neck and his hands on my navel. I could see that reflection in that large sized mirror of that huge dressing table. But, I saw that the reflection had now turned gravely ill.

I felt, it wasn’t the most wonderful happy couple/ pair anymore.

His suggestion was tearing me down.

With the man, literally licking me, the cell in my hand vibrated.  I picked up the call.  A very quivering voice on the other side was warning me.

‘Hello, are you there? I just need to tell you, don’t trust him anymore… He has been rumoring that you are not allowing him to settle down in his relationship. Hello, are you there? Is he there yet?  Why don’t you speak up?  Don’t trust him anymore. Do you get me? He has rumored to everyone that you are the one who doesn’t want to get out of his life and are responsible for creating a mess in his life.  Hello.  Speak up… Are you there?’

That crystal clear voice made me feel betrayed. Ditched, I would say.  I pushed him away with force. He got shocked and he raised his eyebrows and head as if asking what had happened.  Gulping down my trepidation, I put the voice on out loud.  That voice kept warning. ‘Listen. Is he there yet? Don’t trust him anymore. He has rumored about the relationship of you two.  Speak up.’

The room grew silent and only the voice of this trembled individual was filled in it.  It was echoing.

Soon in few moments, the voice on the other side broke up.

Everything grew silent.  It was similar to the silence of Universe, so silent, yet a lot of noise travelling invisibly there…

He lowered his head. A defeated man is always better than the one who has shown betrayal. That lowered head was a symbol of betrayal, not defeat.  How could he, how would he look into my eyes ever again and face millions of unanswered questions?

I cried out loud, ‘What did you do? Why? For whom…’ He had no answers.  Moments passed.

And then he suddenly commanded, ‘I find myself not comfortable in this relationship. I think we should break up.’

I was amazingly shocked by those words.

He stood there, with his lowered eyes and after three years of committed relationship, he declared a break up immediately after spending twelve and a half minutes of solace and pleasure licking the smooth granite body of mine.  I screeched at him, ‘You coward!’ And then I realized that I had already sensed this coming, I guess, when he had minimized our talks.

He just lifted his cell from the bed and moved towards the door.

I felt weak.  I grew smaller.  I felt Ditched.

‘Chhodd dun bus stop tak? (Should I drop you at the bus stop?)  It is 9:10 already’, he mumbled. Then not waiting for my reply, he said, ‘I am waiting for your downstairs.  Come down.  I will hire an auto for you’, and he left the room.

I stood there with my back towards that large sized mirror of that huge dressing table.  I could not dare to move myself and see my reflection by my own face.  I still attempted to.  I turned my face towards that glass.  I could see the tears.  I could see some pain.  I could see those hands…

There were impressions of him all over me!

With both my hands, I started rubbing my neck.  I was doing it hurriedly.  Few drops of the eye water had also slipped in till there.  I tried removing his impressions from my navel, from my face, from my waist…

I kept rubbing.  I kept crying.  I kept rebelling.

Maybe I had realized that those impressions were not so easily erasable.

I immediately ran towards the shower and let the water flow over my anatomy.  I rubbed my hands and face with soap and allowed to get myself drenched into that water.  I realized that I was still in those Brown T and Blue denims.  I tripped myself off on that glazed floor of that Flat room no. 306 at C.G.Road realizing that all my dreams had crashed.

I kept crying.  I cried out loud. I cried out in pain.  I cried out in suffering.  I cried.

The table phone in that miniscule room was ringing.  I noticed it.  I wiped my tears, collected myself and moved towards the phone.  The voice on the other side was the same trembling voice of my friend, and his brother, in whose apartment I had landed to meet the love of my life after three and a half long months on the pretext of visiting the Ahmadabad Film festival, an excuse to my family travelling 350 kilometers through an overnight journey.

The voice asked, ‘Are you alright? The neighbor aunty called me and said she heard huge crying and agitation from the flat.  Is he still there?’

I became silent and replied, ‘Left’.

He said, ‘What do you mean? He came and left?’

I replied, ‘He left.  He left me.  He left me after three years.  He left.  He just simply left…’

The voice instructed me to pack as early as possible to be boarding for my journey on time and not to worry as he would try to convince him and bring him back.  I put the receiver down.  And collected myself from that room and carried myself downstairs.

He was standing, talking to someone over the cell.  I suspected that other woman.  He saw me and pointed towards the auto, then left on his bike, without a second look.

‘Paldi Bus Stop?’ the auto guy inquired.

I just stood there.

I realized that it was difficult to be a woman.