Parth
My black collared shirt, which had a sweat patch too over the pectorals, was tugged away while eyeing the shining stars in the air–ignoring the one right behind me.
"It's fairly simple. I'm done with games." The voice was a tapering clasp of metal in the tensed stratosphere. I had said it. Sweat beads that formed like mildew over my forehead seeped into my left eyebrow.
"What do you mean?" came her frail reply, as if her shallow breath couldn't spare another word.
I twisted my neck to the side, absorbing the blur of her dark kurti on her shaky frame. "It's over."
The hair on my back rose like warriors on a battlefield, brisk and straight as I uttered two innocent words that could wreck hearts when joined together.
Her slender figure was behind me, holding a jar of fireflies that she adored close to her chest; teary globes that carried the universe's worth of oceans slaughtered me with their perforating gaze.
If someone split up with me over one sentence as vague as mine, I wouldn't hesitate before peeling her skin off like a potato and feeding it to rodents. She had to be just as furious, if not any more.
"Parth, yeh tumhare lines nahi hai."
Oh, for fuck's sake!
The useless dinosaur Vikas restlessly flapped into the scene with a paper copy of the scene, destroying the draconian aura of a breakup we'd set into seamless motion. What was fucking wrong with our spontaneous performance? No minor improvisation could be overlooked by those creatives; as if we were scripting their death in words by switching things up! I made sure I rolled my eyes but not under his cautious scrutiny, didn't want to get fired, na-ah.
"I know..." The man was at eye level with me, though his brains seemed far less progressive for his age. "...but it sounds nice, right? Curt and to the point?"
Ayaz's eyes filled with sheer sympathy; he witnessed Vikas' obsession with perfecting my scenes from the day I signed up for the first episode of Pyaar Tune Kya Kiya. Being, now, interminably targeted for even the minutest interferences sucked the profound confidence he built in me, brick by brick, over the years.
Utkarsh was an indifferent witness, as always–a kiss-ass.
"Listen, fans will boycott our show if you act like this. Just do as the script says."
My grunts turned into abuses for myself. Him having blatantly called me out on it in front of the entire team instigated the last nerve holding me back from drilling his head into the camera rolling for the scene. What sort of self-respecting man would have put up with his shit for so long?
Today, he tipped the brink.
I seethed with unfathomable resentment for the fruitless man and his puppet team's attitude towards budding actors making their mark in the industry. It was just unfair. I rocketed out of the shooting frame and towards my vanity van.
Niti was flabbergasted and so stood quietly for a few moments, tilting her head to decipher something. Maybe even she knew nobody could point fingers at me for how realistic that scene was. She was swayed herself, as was I.
The dingy mudded pathway leading to my private space was sprucely lit with a couple of sodium vapour lamps on either side at such a dark hour in the day. As I dodged the several dense bushes and other overgrown shrubs in the way, a warm hand gripped my elbow and swung me around before halting.
She turned to keep an eye out for spies. The uncontrollable fury bubbling within me hurried off, yanking her delicate frame along to a place out of human sight.
Once we paused behind our vanities, my nonchalant focus registered her presence and then hardened. We were covered by the vans on our left, and swampy groves on the right. In a private cocoon, if she allowed.
Niti was almost trembling like a leaf blown in the gusty winds. The night wasn't cold, it never was in Mumbai. I understood she must've sprinted in those sandals to catch up, as her eyes reflected her distress. Maybe the exertion was why...
"Why do I feel ke woh Nandini ke liye nahi tha? It was for me..." She mumbled meeting my eyes for split-seconds between her phrases as if my words violently struck a stiff chord within her. Her body swayed from left-to-right like a pendulum on the uneven ground. I began to notice almost painfully that her hand had then just fallen off mine.
Her infamous side braid, perfectly tailored sleeveless black kurti, the bright pink handbag that matched her spaghetti straps and her subtle makeup that appeared flawless on camera transformed her altogether. This semi-traditional Niti, too, I found pleasing to the eyes.
"Matlab smart toh ho," I retorted curtly, crossing my arms together to compensate for the lost warmth around my elbow. Every inch of my skin that came in contact with hers ignited a spark like the joyous evening of Diwali.
"Huh?" Her eyes dilated with an orange-tinge under the lamp's flare.
She was closer... dangerously closer to me than I would've wanted, and she called for it. I was put in a fix. In the same intonation, only several decibels lower, I continued, "Look... we can't pretend there's nothing when we're like this... offscreen." The debilitation as I waved between us, measuring the centimetres from her breath to mine, confronted the new 'normal' between us.
"Like what offscreen?" My eyes raised to meet hers, which were intensely scanning my expressions. There was a hue of fear on her pale skin, that matched the colour of her flushed lips. "What are we like offscreen?" She repeated, this time sounding clearer but softer than the first. I could feel the tongue in my mouth moving, but no words sprang.
Bewildered tension sunk into her features, in utter hope that I would explain myself and put an end to the puzzles I wanted ceased myself. My fingers hurried to my throbbing temples, while I swirled in my spot like a dog impelling to pee.
"Since yesterday I've been thinking about those kisses... I know they mean something. What we share is not merely professionalism like our interviews suggest, Niti, we both know that. Professionals can be friends, there's no sexual tension; you know we... can't..."
My lips stung in a bittersweet manner whilst reliving the passionate moment when her teeth gently bit into them, sending a stream of adrenaline through my otherwise unassailable reticence.
As the word 'sexual' fell off my quivering lips, her countenance disrobed an expression of apprehension. Eye contact with me henceforth was a forbidden act. Her head wobbled as if banishing the possibility even. "Parth, you're getting it all wrong,"
The twinkle in my eyes vanished. I knew very well what she was haughtily admitting to was far from the truth. She wasn't one of the girls who would go the extra mile to please a man for merely a scene, despite being ordered otherwise. A part of me even clung to the faith of destiny, that all those whimsical dreams about her signalled a fate I could facilely change.
What I couldn't understand was why she was rejecting her feelings...
Her arms were imperviously grasped and sure to imprint my fingernails into her skin, I hauled her into me. "Really?" I roared like a ferocious animal leeching for strength as she flinched with the ache, "You've been in so many relationships na, you would know the difference with us."
She tried to wrestle her way out, but I was too strong for her. After a couple of blows on my unbudging torso, she yelped a soft cry, "Parth... please stop..."
"Niti... admit it, you have such feelings for me too."
My aggressive appearance hovered over her modest, fearful one. She seemed somewhat drugged, unblinking and wimpish with her subsequent struggles and with every passing second, the stress lines on my contours subdued along with my clasp until she froze and I... drowned into her enchanting eyes.
It slowly dawned upon me that between the hammer and the anvil in my fetish to have her disclose her feelings, I turned into a ruthless beast.
The twinge in her facade spoke volumes about the tacit trauma she had undergone in the last few minutes. I watched as her skin flushed around her upper arms, forming crests at the spots I'd pierced. They felt deep and inflamed to my culpable touch. Niti's eyes mellowed on the space between my eyebrows, despondent by my repentance. I clenched my eyes, breathing heavily as my forehead very gently touched hers. God, how brutal was I!
I was becoming as toxic as Manik Malhotra in the fit of securing my relationship.
Two gentle hands drew soft spirals on the sides of my neck, enticing a familiar feeling of euphoria in the darkest crevices of my body. Her frantic heart pumped at a delirious rate on mine. I wanted it, and I knew she did too. I promised myself if she forced me away, or in any way denied me consent of any sort, I would stop. I wouldn't violate her anymore, but I craved her.
"Please..." I breathed over her lips which she left open to let excess oxygen enter.
The next moment, it was her who initiated the hold of my lower lip between hers. I smiled between the feathery kiss, that set off jolts of a beautiful unexplainable feeling in me.
Her right hand trailed over to the side of my nape, directing me the way she wanted as I effortlessly lifted her off the mud with both arms wrapped around her sinewy waist. Our height difference was such that even after me substantially lifting her, she wasn't as tall as I was. It was one of the most romantic moments I shared with her until then, a feeling of possession overhauled: like Niti belonged to me.
I left her lips and dug my nose into her left cheek, planting a warm wet kiss there when she tightened her arms around my neck. She clearly took delight in the act, confirming any mild suspicions I had otherwise. As I went south, I lifted her higher. Hands grazed my two-day-old stubble, imprinting a smother on my forehead before she re-anchored on my shoulders and gaped into my orbs while a few inches higher than me.
Maybe for the first time in our 'relationship', Niti was the taller one.
Even if she denied later, I knew what we shared in the heat of that moment was a game-changer.
"Parth?" Charlie was at my vanity, literally blocked by my van. Neither Niti nor I happened to notice the bristling footsteps on the wild grass, lost in sinful passion of our own.
I gasped, dropping Niti to the floor quickly. Her hand was still on my shoulder, gaining balance from the escalated moment. No wonder the other actors teased us for getting carried away. I didn't have long to think of a diversion.
"Ah, Nandu... you're so dumb!"
Her face was flushed at the places my lips sought her body. If everything else seemed foolproof, still Niti's body language would give something suspicious away. She needed more time to recover. But Charlie made her appearance, right when Niti coincidentally sulked. "Hey, Charlie, what's up?" My teeth flashed in such a plastic manner. I was still heaving from the private moment too.
"Tu yahan kya kar raha hai?" Her eyebrows furrowed at Niti which made my girl visibly uncomfortable.
"We're rehearsing our part?"
"Here?" Charlie eyed her and Niti nodded too, silently gulping. Charlie didn't seem convinced enough. "Vikas Sir is calling you both."
As she left, I passed a concerned look to Niti whose senses seemed to work only after we began to leave. She panicked and held my wrist before sighing deeply. "Parth... we can't be together."
*
Niti
Dreadful of the tears clogging the inner corners of my eyes, I sniffled. I couldn't let it ruin my makeup, not before Manik broke Nandini's heart.
Yes, I freaked out! I totally did.
I wasn't expecting such a big revelation from him, and that unexpected moment when I kissed him... I can't believe I kissed him!
"admit it, you have such feelings for me too." Such feelings?
The back of my head confirmed that Parth had mentioned sexual tension, and though we did share a great amount of that from day one, hearing him say it sounded filthy, as if that was the only thing I was concerned about. That was not what I wanted from him.
There was so much more to him, and to me, but he hadn't acknowledged that. I was romantically interested, but he... I didn't know. He didn't confess that—the first thing that ticked me off.
And the second Charlie entered, another Parth emerged... as if he was embarrassed almost, of me, which confirmed a lot of my suspicions. That I was supposed to be a secret, like an affair he was not proud of.
That broke my heart.
When sanity returned, I agreed that I was not going to settle for anything less than a genuine relationship with someone who truly respected me. If he couldn't assure me that security, he didn't deserve me.
I had to walk away, to protect myself. I knew what would have happened if Charlie hadn't appeared. I would've foolishly blabbered everything sprouting in my heart from the first day I saw him in my dreams and made a joke out of my feelings.
How could I forget, he had only broken up with Disha a few weeks ago. I couldn't be a rebound.
I wouldn't.