Prem & Wad.
Loneliness is an evil mistress and Wad succumbs to her.
The second book of Prem & Wad id dedicated to a faithful reader... "MailmanPilot"
without whom, this would not have been written. More, the whole premise is based on an Idea o...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The steaming hot water poured over his head and shoulders. Prem had his arm stretched out and his hand on the wall. He was using it to balance himself.
He'd been in the shower so long that his fingertips were wrinkled and his toes too.
There was a definite feeling that he could stay in there all day but he knew that Calliope and the others were probably already waiting for him. Giving in, he reached and turned the tap off and took the towel he'd placed over the bar before he got in.
Everything about being here, back in Thailand, was filled with a collage of memories. The smell of the air, the taste of the food and water, even the sticky feeling of the heat was full of reflection.
It wasn't his childhood he remembered. It wasn't memories of family time or school days, instead, every recollection had Wad's face in it. Every breath of the warm air was somehow flavoured like that of the air in his dorm room, where he and Wad had spent countless naked hours. It seemed to carry on it, that faint scent that could only be found in a single spot in all the world. That spot was the hairline on the back of Wad's neck, just one little place.
Even food had lost its meaning, it didn't taste of garlic and basil, or salty or sugary and sweet, it was the taste of Wad's skin, his lips, a taste of Wad. Food didn't serve as sustenance, there was no feeling of satiation or full.
In the night, the hum of the city outside his hotel window didn't sound like traffic, sirens and honking horns, it made him think of the mornings when he would wake with his ear pressed to Wad's sleeping back, the world outside the room, having no bearing, no purpose at all.
He couldn't part his mind from these thoughts. He found the sunlight and the colour of the sky, the softness of the clouds, strange, even they, somehow contained Wad too.
He knew he couldn't escape it.
So, he breathed it in, dried and dressed himself, straightened his shoulders and closed the suite door behind him.
In the car, he went back inside himself. Cali could see he was spinning a white gold and platinum ring on his finger, he toyed with it while he sat next to the window behind the driver. With Cali right next to him he knew every street as it passed by in a haze, She was speaking to him but he didn't hear a word she said. It was all in vain, her cause, to calm him. Calliope more than anyone, excepting Dok, knew that this was a "Now or Never" moment for Prem.
She could tell that his mind was playing tricks on him. He would charge himself with courage like he did before they left the hotel, but only minutes later, here in the car, his brain would cheat and ambush him. The self-doubt, vacillating between his head and his heart.
There was no plan "B." Prem had no idea what would happen, or if Dok's plan would work.
Prem said so much in the last chapter, "Going Home."
