After their big brunch, Reyansh and Kayal both decided to ditch the cleaning for later and slumped on the couch lazily while sipping the wine from earlier. Somewhat, they had reached an unspoken agreement to finish up the bottle then itself.
"I feel so sleepy!" Kayal face-palmed herself and turned to Reyansh who had returned after filling his flute with wine.
"You had just woken up some time ago, and you're sleepy again?" He snickered as he helped her to refill.
"Dude, I was just saying what I feel! You don't have to be so mean! I love my job, no doubt but working from home is kinda killing me. It gets really exhausting with all those phone calls and reassurances. To add to this, my team is conveniently making gross mistakes which I need to re-do. I'm so drained mentally!" Kayal took a long sip of the wine as she sulked to her husband.
"It's just three days into the lockdown and you're already exhausted? Oh my God! How will you handle the upcoming days?" He reached out to release her dark brown hair from the messy bun, much to her displeasure and began to give her scalp a massage.
"To be honest, I really don't know. Damn... hmmm... you're so good at this!"
Kayal found herself relaxing despite feeling apprehensive of what awaits her in the upcoming days. Within minutes of his magical massage, she drifted into a tiny dreamless nap and was snapped back into reality when Reyansh had called out to her.
"Were you sleeping?"
"What? Dude! No! I wasn't sleeping. I was just relaxing." She closed her eyes yet again only to find his fingers gone from her hair now.
"Reyansh, why'd you stop?"
"Because you were going to sleep and I'll have to be all alone throughout the whole day again! I literally have nothing to do right now. Shall we watch a movie?"
"I'll definitely sleep then!"
"Okay, so let's talk! I like talking to a drunk you. Get more wine into your system and start blabbering, will you?"
"Ha! Ha! Very funny! Reyansh Mehrotra I have a very high level of alcohol tolerance unlike you. You are the one who starts blabbering when he's drunk. I get smarter when alcohol enters my system!" Kayal rebuked with a laughter that fluttered his heart. Her laughter is one of the things that he really missed the three months away. He hadn't realized it back then. He simply assumed that he missed her, but it was more like the essence of her being herself without any restriction because ever since he was back, this was the first time he felt the missing piece in his heart being found.
"You know what? You were right! I actually missed you in the past three months whenever I'm not working and all by myself. Remember I told you about not feeling like myself in the ship? And also that there's a weird feeling tugging my heart at all times, I think it's because I was missing you badly!"
"Aww! Reyansh, we spoke almost every other day and you still missed me? Aren't you the cutest?" Kayal raised her hands to pull his cheeks and her husband reluctantly allowed her to do so.
"I think you've had enough to drink!" He reprimanded her and took her flute away.
"Dude yaar! Don't do this Reyansh!" Kayal was all set to climb on top of him to grab her flute but he had raised it above his head and further up, preventing from reaching it. This only increased her determination to reach for the wine glass and all her inhibition was gone with the wind. Her mind was focused on one thing alone, and that was the to get the flute from him.
"This can be counted as sexual harassment, you know!"
Confused at his statement, Kayal looked down from the flute only to find her husband's face being close to her. Without her realizing, she had straddled him while provocatively grazing their bodies together. As it dawned to her that he was getting turned on upon seeing his dilating pupil, she jumped away from him onto the other side of the couch. Embarassed from the tiny incident, she refused to look at him despite being called out a few times now. She had only hummed and fixed her gaze at the window, away from him.
"Look at anywhere but him!" Her mind had sent strict orders to her eyes and they seem to be more than eager to go against it.
"Kayal, I was just kidding. Here you go!" Reyansh sighed when she had avoid looking at him. His gaze fell down on her fingers which were clutching the hem of her T-Shirt tightly. Her knuckles were clearly getting pale from the pressure she was applying on it. Her cheeks on the other hand, seemed to be flared up as he noticed the slight shade of red appearing. Despite the fact that her complexion was dark brown, he could still notice the hues on her cheeks. There were only two possibilities for that to happen. One, she must be really embarrassed or two, she must be blushing!
"Could it be the latter? Could she be blushing?"
"Are you blushing, Kayal?" Reyansh voiced out almost immediately after the thought running through his mind.
"Dude, you're always joking and playing around." She swatted his arms that reached out to her face, turning her to look at him.
"I'm sorry about earlier. I kinda mighta sorta feel embarrassed and your pupil even dilated, so I just... I... "
"You thought I was getting turned on?" He was always very open and frank when it comes to this topic while she on to other hand had somewhat found it scandalous to be discussed openly, even if it is with him.
Burying her face into her palms, Kayal nodded. She didn't know what else to do and was still dealing with the fact that she might have just accidentally turned on her husband of convenience.
"I'm a straight man with sexual needs and desire, Kayal. You can't just expect me to not be even remotely affected by what you did especially when I'm on abstinence. Even if it was unintentional, it happened and I don't think there's any cause for you to be embarrassed about it."
"You don't have to be on abstinence, Reyansh. I mean... I did mentioned to you when we were getting into this marriage that I can't offer you physical relationship but I never refrained you from having one for yourself, right?"
"Kayal, even if its just for convenience, we are still married. I can't make myself to go after another woman and cheat on you. I thought I had made myself clear the same time!" Reyansh's answer had rendered her speechless. Both of them sat silently for a while. They kind of just had their first argument after marriage, didn't they?
"So is this our first fight after marriage?" Reyansh broke the deafening silence.
"I think, it might be!" She chuckled. "But it might not be as well. I mean, it's more like an argument, right? Not exactly a fight. We didn't yell at each other. We just talked and stated our opinions."
"Fair enough!"
"Remember the first time I came to your place for dinner and drinks? That was after our first fight. In case you're still wondering what a fight is and how it is different from an argument!" Kayal grinned, being joyous of having the pleasure to explain something further. She loved doing that, especially when she's proving a point.
"Oh! Well, how can I forget that! That night ultimately changed my life. If I knew that you would ask me to marry you, I would have just leave the lanyard on your door and fled away!"
"Hey! I never asked you to marry me. I just told you that I have a plan and you insisted on joining it!" Kaysl got all defensive.
"Oh, is it? It must be the wine. I must have done it under the influence of alcohol. Else, me and marriage? Pfft!"
Kayal couldn't believe her ears when she heard that. "Yeah right!"
"That's right!" He winked, making her smile yet again. It is still a wonder to Kayal as to how her husband manages to change her mood effortlessly with just tiny, little gestures. Little things do matter after all!
* * *
After a long, awkward and silent dinner together, Reyansh had brought his scotch whiskey with two glasses.
"I've never tried whiskey before." Kayal apprehensively informed him as she watched him pour the gold brown liquor into the glass, filing only a quarter of it.
"Well, first time for everything then, I guess?" He raised a glass towards her.
She took it from him and gulped it down in one go, burning her throat delightfully as the liquid gushed down.
"This is good!" She commented with a smile while Reyansh was staring her dumbfounded.
"Dude, you're not supposed to drink it in one go like that. And how come you're not reacting to it? Like, no coughing nor teary eyes or anything?"
"I don't know!" She plainly shrugged as she took a potato chip from the plate in front of her. They had sat down in his beautiful balcony for the drink. That long balcony had a lot more potential than what he had done. It was empty, with no potted plants nor any seaters.
"You have a beautiful balcony! We don't have it in our condominium."
"Oh my God! Really? That's really weird! These developers are crazy! They should have built the same kind of houses here in this building right? Instead of varying it and making life difficult and unfair?"
Kayal could only chuckle at his thought.
"He is funny!"
"Anyways, I've been wanting to ask you. What happened earlier? You said you were almost molested. I'm sorry that it happened. Do you wanna talk about it?"
"I... I don't know. I really want to forget about it. I kinda mighta sorta have forgotten about it hadn't you not bring it up"
"Is it okay to forget and brush it under the rug? I think it's better if you talked it out, get it out of your system. I'm just trying to be your friend. We are friends, right?"
Kayal smiled and nodded in agreement. They are friends. Even if they don't know much about each other. That's how each friendship begins, doesn't it?
"Well, my parents are actively seeking a groom for me and that guy that almost molested me was one of the grooms that I had to go and meet. Despite the fact of him being a MBA holder, he thought a proposal for convenient marriage is an invitation to have physical relationship. And I, like a stupid ran away the first chance I got when he gropped my back, trying to pull me towards him for a kiss. I should have stayed back, pushed him away and give him an earful for what he did. I should have created a scene, but I didn't. I chickened out and ran away." Kayal took deep breaths to calm herself while Reyansh reached out for her hand and gave it a light squeeze, ensuring her that he was there, as a friend. A sympathetic or empathetic friend, only God and himself knows.
"I just got so angry at myself and in a while my parents will call me up, asking how it went! Urgh! This is all just so frustrating!" She gulped down another peg of scotch whiskey.
"I understand. Indian parents and their expectations for the kids! It can be so stressful! They just don't seem to get behind of it. Get married, get married, get married. As if getting married is something everyone wants!"
"Exactly! You just stole the words from my mouth! Personally, I'm not a huge fan of marriage. I don't believe in the constitution of marriage. It just doesn't make any sense for a girl to uproot everything and sacrifice it all for a man who would just take her for granted!"
"I have seen it first-hand!" Reyansh chuckled and paused, taking a sip. Perhaps it was too painful to be talked out without the aid of alcohol.
"I have seen people suffer from marriages and I really don't wish to put myself in the same shoes as them and while on it, ruin a girl's life. Besides, life as an offshore marine engineer doesn't really allow all these romantic entanglement. So, yeah! But God forbid, if we ever talk about this to our elders, they will say that we aren't aware of the norms of the world and then, listen to a lecture from God knows who all our parents tell that too!"
"You know what? This is exactly why I came up with an idea of convenient marriage, but people seem to be conveniently convinced that it means I'm asking for only physical relationship. Life is beyond physical relationship and no asshole that I met so far understood this!" She huffed and refilled her glass again.
"So, how exactly does your marriage for convenience work? Enlighten me a bit!"
"Well, it is like a real marriage, but with a contract and rules in it. It can be different for everyone, actually. For me, I want the marriage to get my parents of my back, so my conditions are a divorce after a couple years or when the guy found the love of his life, then of course, no physical relationship and respect each other's family members. Is this too much to ask for?"
"Well, no physical relationship is too much to ask for especially when you're gonna live in the same house! Unless he's away most of the time and rarely at his home! Like a marine engineer! Hmm!" Reyansh pointed out.
"Where do I find a marine engineer who would be willing to marry me?"
"Why not marry me?" Reyansh asked at the same time she imposed the question to him.
"What?"
"I think it would be a perfect arrangement, what do you think?"
"Dude, I don't even know your name!" Kayal pointed out at his sudden proposal. She was just baring her heart out and from nowhere she was getting a marriage proposal now! This has to be the craziest things she had ever experienced in her whole life and that coming from a Tamilian girl who has lived her whole life in a huge joint family is actually a huge thing.
"My name is Reyansh Mehrotra. I'm 29 years old and I'm a marine engineer. I thought about your convenient marriage idea and am quite fond it, miss Kayalvizhi (vizzy)"
"What? That's not how my name is pronounced! It is pronounced as Kayalvizhi (villy)"
"But I saw your spelling with a Z in it!" Reyansh quickly butted in.
"That's how it is spelled. It is Tamil language thing. You won't understand!"
"I can learn. Afterall, it is the mother tongue of my future wife!"
"What?" Kayal couldn't help but to chuckle.
"Reyansh, you're mad!"
"Hey! I must learn Tamil dude. Consider it as one of the little things that I'll do for you, to honour our marriage! What say?"
"You're crazy!" She shrugged it off.
So, that's the flashback of how they got into this idea. Any idea of how they actually went through it all and ended up getting married?
Oh, and the picture above is the balcony of Reyansh. It is pretty, isn't it?
Until the next echo,
With love,
Nivaa