A couple of days later Sakshi's symptoms abated and she found herself at rest. She sat in front of the computer screen and looked at Dhruv.
"Have you ever met someone who never got better?"
Dhruv tilted his head and looked at her with a smile. He stayed silent for a moment and then asked, "In what sense?"
"I meant that sometimes some people have traumas that prevent them from doing things. And what if they can't do that for a lifetime?"
Dhruv rubbed his chin, "Good question. If they can't they don't. Some do but they want to. If they don't want to then there's nothing pressuring them is there?"
"What if it's essential? And they want to but they can't."
"Then they find ways around it. Nothing is essential in life. Only you are."
***
Sakshi thought long and hard about what Dhruv said and what her husband had said. Could they be a truly married couple if she couldn't even perform such a simple act to please him?
He had told her that it wouldn't matter. But how long? A year? A month? Eventually, it would get boring. She sighed and walked straight into some. She stumbled but the other person held her.
"Little bird!"
She grimaced. Not him again.
"Ashwin. What are you doing here?" She put on a fake smile. Sakshi wanted to retch.
"I came to meet you Sakshi." He said. Sakshi moved away from his hold. "It has been too long, hasn't it?"
She looked at his features and he was mature now. How had she even loved him? She blamed it on her naivete.
"I still don't understand why you're here from Australia."
"Well, my ex-wife and I got a divorce so I came back."
Liar. Sakshi knew he was lying to her. She said nothing. "I have work to do. Nice meeting you." She tried cutting him off.
"Can we meet sometime? Alone?"
No way in hell was happening. before she could retort someone called him out.
"Dr. Ashwin! Mrs. Sakshi. Can I get a photograph?" It was someone from the press Sakshi gathered from the ID on his neck.
He smiled and nodded. Sakshi tried to move away but he held her waist. She froze. She felt like she had been burned where he touched. But she didn't let it show. She put on her business-like smile and stayed still.
Her ears started ringing and he said something to her and she just nodded. After the photographer was done, she pushed him away with all her strength.
"Ma'am?!" It was a familiar voice. Her vision was spotted and her limbs felt wobbly. "Ma'am? Sakshi?" She waved in the general direction of the voice. Warm hands cupped her cold ones and she felt him dragging her behind his back.
"That's enough." He dismissed the journalist.
"Little Bird, are you okay?"
"She's fine." That voice seemed so familiar. Sakshi breathed hard.
"I'm a doctor, I can..."
"Sir! She. Is. Fine. You can leave."
For a few moments, everything was quiet and then he turned to her, "He's gone. Are you okay?"
"Office..." She rasped out. Take me to my office. She wanted to say.
***
Siddharth rubbed his eyelids and stared at the computer. He read the minutes of the previous AGM. Just a few more days he thought.
That was when there was a knock on his door. He uttered a come-in. It was Priya.
"Bhai, am I disturbing you?"
"No. I have a few minutes to spare. What is it?'
Priya came in and she hesitated, "I was watching the news...that day you asked about bhabhi's ex...I just found something strange...um... never mind." She turned to go.
"Wait. What is it?"
Priya looked torn, "I know you both are having problems. I don't want to add on to it."
"Priya, what is it? Is something wrong?"
"I'll just show you."
Priya walked to his chair and she showed him an article. It was one of those articles from a minor news channel. But among the pictures were pictures of Sakshi. She was standing beside someone and his arm was around her waist. The next picture was of them looking at each other and smiling.
"That's Ashwin. Her ex."
"Huh." He shrugged casually. "She did say she would be in the news today. She looks good, no?"
A look passed Priya's face and he had never seen her like that. Then she nodded and smiled, "Yes she looks good."
Siddharth almost saw red. He was only human. Of course, he felt possessive of her. But he remembered all the rumors. They said she was a slut, she had slept with multiple men. The rumors were often so vulgar and cheap.
He had heard many boys in his school brag about their sexcapades with her. Even before their kiss, there were so many rumors circulating about her.
He felt ashamed knowing somewhere sometime even for a bit he had believed those lies about her. And even if the rumors were true, it didn't matter anymore to him.
He wasn't a saint either. He had a past of his own and it didn't reflect on his relationship with his wife in the present. He was ready to start anew with her once the D-Day was some
***
Sakshi slumped on her office chair. She held her head and took deep breaths calming her heart. She could feel the cool air on her skin because of sweating.
"Do you want some water?"
She opened her eyes and her vision was now clear. She nodded and took the bottle from him and gulped down the liquid.
"Thank you so much, Vikram." She said. She was so glad he had warded off that bastard. The moment he touched her she felt as if she had been stabbed.
"It is my duty, ma'am"
She rolled her eyes. "Just call me Sakshi. We have already seen enough of each other in situations which warrant first name basis."
He nodded and his ears were red. He knew she implied that day when he had caught her with Myra.
***
When Sakshi came back home, she immediately washed up. Her husband wasn't yet back. Maybe he was working overtime again. She decided to just peep at him once and went to his face. She knocked and there was no response. She knocked again and there was no response again. She clicked the door open and poked her head inside and saw the desk light was on.
He was on his chair but his head was tilted to his shoulder, his eyes closed. She tiptoed in slowly. His desk was littered with coffee mugs and she stacked them and placed them away from the papers he had spread out.
Then she walked across his desk and leaned her back to it and watched him. He looked exhausted. There were shadows under his eyes and his stubble was darker. She brushed her fingertips on his cheekbones and then the hair on his forehead. She leaned down and pressed kisses to the exposed side of his face.
He stirred awake and smiled at her. "What are you doing here?" His voice was scratchy.
She brushed his cheek with her hand tracing the smile curves on his face, "I came to ask if you've had your dinner yet?"
"Not yet."
"Are you hungry?"
"Famished."
He sat more upright and caught her hand and pressed his lips to her palm. Her palm shot up in tingles. He pulled her arm and dragged her to his lap. He didn't let go of her hand and kissed her wrist to her fingers.
"You have dark circles." She traced under his eye with her other hand. He looked at her. "You look so tired, you should rest more...uh..."
She searched her mind for endearments. She could always use darling but that was what he called her and she liked it more when he said it.
"I can hear your mind whirring. What are you thinking?" He let go of her hand and slumped his head back on the headrest looking at her with lazy eyes.
"Honey?"
That didn't have the ring to it.
"Sweetie?"
She grimaced. It seemed so childish.
Siddharth pressed his lips together so that he didn't laugh out loud and interrupt her one-sided conversation.
"Baby?"
***
She shook her head. He was confused but he watched her frown deep in her thoughts.
"Jaanu? Yikes. No."
And he couldn't control it anymore as laughter escaped him."What is this list of absurd names?"
She looked at him with all seriousness. "It's not funny." She folded her hands to her waist. "I'm figuring out what to call you. You call me darling so it is only fair I call you something but nothing seems to work."
He chuckled and twisted her hair around his finger, "Oh such a conundrum! I have suggested a name though."
She frowned at him clueless., "What?"
Mischievousness bloomed in his chest and he put on a smile and told her, "I told you you can call me daddy."
At once, her face was red and she hit his arm, "Shut up." He laughed at her annoyance.
"Maybe I should call you the devil. The fiend that you are! Lucifer incarnate!"
His laughter bubbled down and she looked at him flushed with embarrassment.
***
Sakshi stood up from his lap and tugged his hands. "I'll think of something, but you said you were hungry."
"I am. I have to get back to work soon enough though." He stood up after her effortless tugging.
Sakshi frowned, "No. You, Sir! are resting today!" She grabbed his arm and walked out of the office.
"Sakshi..." He whined.
"I am hearing no excuses! This is not done! You are exhausting yourself and you stay cooped up in the office all day and all night. You don't eat and you don't sleep!"
By the time her rant was finished, they had arrived at their master bedroom.
"Who would've thought you'd be such a nagging wife?"
Sakshi would've taken offense but his tone was teasing. She left his side and stood in front of them. "You enjoy it, don't deny it."
He leaned over and kissed her once quickly, "Damn right I do!"
She turned him around and pushed him towards the washroom. "Go freshen up! I'll find something to eat."
***
Sakshi looked at the abomination on the table. Why did she have to try cooking? She just wanted to do something for him. Her husband looked at the table spread too.
She had found fruits and cheese too. She boiled some water in a kettle and by God's grace, she found tea bags so she didn't have to make the tea herself. She had just boiled the milk and poured it into a jar.
"Did you make this?" His tone was still teasing.
She nodded. "I tried the recipe line by line. How is it still! Obviously, Veer's recipes don't work!"
Her husband laughed. "Obviously."
But he still tried the bread pizza and she closed her eyes. She opened it only when she heard a loud crunch.
"It's okay..." He said after he finished chewing the bite. "It's just a bit charred that's all."
She tried one slice of the supposed bread pizza and she couldn't bite it at all, it was hard as stone. He laughed and she broke it with her fingers.
"How! Argh!" She put it down and messaged Veer about how his recipe sucked.
Veer had sent her a gif of a monkey with a frying pan saying "This is you!" He then sent pictures of Asha and Usha each with his wife's smiles and a plate in their hands with a slice on each.
"My daughters cook better than you!"
She scoffed. "Unbelievable!"
"What is unbelievable?"
She looked up to see him looking at her with amusement. "Nothing. You want to see a picture of my nieces?"
He nodded and she slid next to him on his couch and showed him the pictures that Veer had sent.
"That's cute." He said.
"You know, they look exactly like me? Veer found an old picture when I was their age and I looked like them."
"Really?"
"I can show you the picture but I don't have it right now. What about you? I haven't seen your childhood pictures either."
He stiffened beside her, "I don't know. It might be somewhere."
Sakshi realized that he was deflecting and that's when she decided to search for the pictures.
****
She was in the storeroom of the old house the next day. She asked Usha Sandhini where she might find his childhood albums and the woman said she didn't quite remember but maybe it was in the storeroom. She borrowed a very from her and came to the old mansion.
She looked at a box which was marked albums and there weren't pictures of him. Instead, it was pictures of Priya. She looked through the albums and on Priya's third birthday she found him. He stood in a corner and his face was withdrawn. He looked like he didn't belong. She drew a finger over his face as if to ease his expression. Her heart tugged and her eye was burning in the corners.
He had been on this planet for three decades, how could there not be a single photograph of him? After pouring through the albums she found another in which he was a teenager. He looked younger than when they first met. Maybe he had been 14 or 15, she could see the anguish in his eyes that she had seen when they first met.
She took the two photographs and she searched some more. In a corner behind the boxes, she found a Handycam. She tried switching it on but it wouldn't. She looked at it closely and with a marker, there was a scrawl underneath, Siddarth's Camera. She didn't even know how old it was. It wasn't even a digital camera.
But maybe it had photos of him. She put it in her handbag. She sighed disappointedly. She was hoping to make a scrapbook.
But it was hypocritical of her, she realized. They didn't have any couple portraits too. She decided she would talk to him about it.
***
"Are you okay?" Siddharth asked Myra.
"I'm fine. Why do you ask?" She said.
She looked horrible. That's why. She had messaged him that she was sick and would take a week off. But now as he video called her, something seemed off. She didn't look sick, just tired.
"You look....." He waved his hands.
"I dare you to complete that sentence. Go on."
He sighed. His door opened and Sakshi walked in and he froze. Myra snickered, "Is your wife in the room? You should see your face."
He muted Myra and looked at Sakshi who gave him a tight smile. "Continue. I'll come back later." She said.
Myra only laughed after he unmuted her. "For fuck's sake! You love sop!"
"Shut up."
"Fine. I'll say nothing."
"You don't know how mad she gets at you and me talking."
"Then stop talking to me." She shrugged. He brushed it off.
"What's wrong? Is something bothering you?"
"Not your business. Anyways, tell me, did you tell her?"
"Tell what?"
"You know what."
God! He could feel his ears burning. A 30-year-old man shouldn't be feeling all this and blushing like a schoolboy.
"Not yet."
"Ugh! Idiots! Both of you! I don't know how she doesn't know yet, it's so painfully obvious."
"Let's close that topic. I am worried about you, are you eating well?"
She just shrugged at that.
"Myra, you're okay? Right?"
This obviously couldn't be easy for her. She knew what he was thinking about because her face was irritated.
"You're annoying me. I am fine. Stop asking me again and again. What do you want me to do? Cry over you? I have moved on."
"I didn't mean that. I just - We'll stay friends, right?"
"We will. As always."
***
When he came back to the room, Sakshi was on the phone at her desk. She looked at him and she walked to the balcony finishing her call. he busied himself at her desk. He looked at the calendar and he saw the date. Tomorrow would be horrible. He knew that.
When she came back, her face was withdrawn and pale. He couldn't help his legs from moving towards her. "What's wrong, Sakshi?"
"Jaanvi called. Viren's dad tested positive."
"That's terrible. I'll have to drop a message to him." He said and pulled her towards him. She settled warmly against his chest.
"I hope he'll be fine. It puts things into perspective." She sighed.
He nodded. His whole life was in perspective. If there was anything he firmly believed was that life was fleeting and only death was certain. His beliefs were further cemented after the treadmill mishap.
Another day and he'd be older than his parents when they died. That caused his chest to constrict and he tried very hard to not think about it.
"How was your day at work?" He asked to hope that they could stray from this topic.
"It was fine. How was yours?"
"Very boring."
"I could see that..." she muttered hoping he wouldn't hear but he did. He smiled and said, "Huh. What was that?"
"Nothing..."
"I'm not sure it was nothing. I was talking to Myra about her health. She seemed depressed."
"Oh. I never asked." She said in that haughty way of hers and he almost believed her except he knew her too well.
"Well, I'm disappointed."
She looked up at him, "Why?"
"I was hoping for a fight."
"Good God why?"
He pulled her in tighter and kissed her. "You know where our fighting leads to."
She put her arms around his neck and this time she kissed him first. "You know what they say..." Her fingers were tracing against his nape and it shot currents all through his body.
"What?" He asked. Their lips were brushing against one another.
"There are many ways to a destination."
This time they kissed. There was no time for words. It was all heat and fire. He didn't know where his hands were and where hers were. He didn't know what it ended and where he started. At this rate, someone was going to get burned so he pulled away and he took a painful breath in.
"I...We need to set some rules."
"Fine...what is it?"
"We'll go slow...this time."
Sakshi laughed as if he had cracked a joke. "We will see about that? I waited for 30 years to have this, you think I'll be going slow?"
"Fair enough. But, you'll not do anything that you don't want to."
She looked down at the front of his pants and up at him, "Even if it will bring you great pleasure."
"Even if it will bring me great pleasure." He could feel himself harden painfully. "You agree?"
"Fine. Fine."
"And lastly, you will tell me no if anything feels off. I will stop. I promise you that."
"Fine! Fine! Now get here!"
But she didn't wait for him to bridge the gap, she was already on him. Kissing him.
***
TO BE CONTINUED. READ NEXT CHAPTER.