Just Another Love Story? Part-2

(Please read ‘Just another Love Story? Part 1’, before this to understand the import of the continuing tale here)

Shradha’s body had settled in but she had still not!
Phew! Just a couple of feet away from the man to whom she had breathed out, countless times over the phone, the three, golden, magical words “I love you”! And now she was almost and literally speechless!

She was glad that he was driving, so the focus was on the road and not on his scrutinizing how she looked. She didn’t dare to look too much at him herself, feeling extremely conscious of the proximity. He smiled, spoke a few words to make her comfortable and held her hand. The touch made her a bundle of nerves for a moment, but then as their fingers clasped, within seconds strangely enough, it made her relax. His beautiful, clear, deep voice resounded again, reminding her that he is the one, with whom she spends endless hours every day over the phone and yet feel the need to talk more.
She knew every emotion and motion that he had passed through in his three and a half decades of life!

Yes, they had talked their lives and guts out!
They had laughed and loved and lived each moment of togetherness. Now she smiled again for when he laughed, she saw his teeth!
“Heeeeeeeeey, you’ve got teeth...yipieeeee...I always thought they were probably not there or really dirty n brown for all your pictures are with a lips compressed smile.”
“Baby, just because I don’t show many things to you, it does not mean they don’t exist! You wanna know what else I have that you’ve not seen?” *Wink, wink!*

Suddenly he was no stranger, he was mad like she knew him to be and remarkably enough she felt as though they had never been parted, forget about having never met before. Sid, for that’s what she called him, in his characteristic mischievous way, winked and whistled and told her that he thought she looked beautiful and never would you have seen a redder tinge than what spread on her cheeks, as she smiled coyly. With her soft palm, she physically turned away his face on the road to stop him from looking at her with hungry eyes. And then when her nerves had eased, she raised her own long lashes to look at him. And she smiled for she liked what she saw!

Sid was thirty five...way older than her...yet seemed equally nervous...in fact won’t be an exaggeration to say, jitterier than she was. He said he spent one hour in dressing that morning and gulped down three parathas and a couple of sandwiches to ward off the anxiety and just to keep his hands occupied.
Gone was his overflowing, confident demeanour that was conspicuous in telephonic conversations...well, not exactly. He smiled shyly when she gazed at his countenance so perfectly etched...the taut jaw line, the little eyes that closed shut when he laughed aloud while his head tilted backwards, the cheeks that formed adorable moulds just before meeting up with the long nose...the narrow ears with the softest earlobes and broad forehead that spoke of the immense brain that lay within.

“Baby, just look at our hands together here, clasping the gear...yours so white and mine so black!”
“Babu, but then look at the skill of the palms too...yours holding mine so perfectly and my crumbling to fit in!”
He smiled.............and sang for her. Siddharth always did that to woo Shradha. He sang when they spoke on the phone for the first time (after a month of writing emails to each other), sang whenever she asked him to, wherever too, like from the men’s loo, like from outside the classroom of his daughter’s PTA meeting!

Yes, he was crazy about her! And for Shradha, anything and everything about him seemed adorable...like he said often teasing her, that she was blindfolded with the strip of love to notice the flaws.
Perhaps she was!

His wheatish complexion brought more character to his appearance but the over worked eyes seem to betray the churns of everyday humdrums of life! Yet his buoyancy was infectious and sent a thrill down Shradha’s spine, for it seemed every pore in his body was just as enlivened to see her. She basked in the smug satisfaction of being within his aura!

She let her gaze travel around for a while at the skyscrapers and yet it returned to him, magnetically...her curiosity making her give in. She squeezed his hand and felt the strength of his grip. She had often thought of how his long fingers would feel entwined in hers and felt her goose bumps rise at the idea of this realization. She noticed how beautifully the corners of his lips curled up playfully, when he smiled in embarrassment of being blatantly stared at. And she enjoyed his slight discomfort that made her lose all of her inhibitions. Suddenly she had metamorphosed from being ‘the hunted’ to becoming ‘the hunter’! Her hands moved boldly and further on him to explore.

She felt his salt n pepper hair ending at the nape of his neck and gently touched them. He smiled for he enjoyed her dainty fingers creating magical, soft circular strokes in his hair and then patting his cheeks. This was no longer virtual...it was real and here to stay. She belonged to him all that day and something in him reassured...not just for the day, but for life! He felt the excitement of a teenager and simultaneously the mad rush of the insane. He felt everything with her and nothing beyond her.

“Baby, if you’ll keep touching me like this...it would be soooo hard!”
“Huh, what?”
“Arre matlab so hard to drive yaar! Ram, Ram...what a dirty mind you have!”
“And how about this then?”
She took his fore finger and licked it. She had seen this in the movies and noticed how the hero would wedge moan fully at this action. Sid laughed and hugged tight his innocent Shradha, trying with all her mettle to please him...driving him crazier with the effort than the act itself!

And she questioned him teasingly, “Tell me, is this better or worse than with those two bimbettes who came before me?”
“Huh? Which bimbettes? Was there anything before you?”
“Acha ji...we are playing dumb now, are we?”
“Baby, anything before you has faded and everything after you would be jaded!”
The perfect answer, as always! Perhaps by now he had learnt what made her smile and shut up with her half-jealous queries.

Sid was a successful software engineer, also married, to a pretty wife and had a delightful daughter. But unlike her, this was not the first time he had been unfaithful...or shall we say, deviated from the monogamous course. He had met a couple of girls before on similar kind of a date...but then he said it was more of physical than a mental connect. He had never any qualms in admitting that he had a hyper libido that was sadly under satiated in the routine and monotonous chains of matrimony. Yet he never said that he didn’t love his wife either. He had well etched out boundaries and clear perceptions of how he wanted things. Yet Shreds, for that’s what he called Shradha, had ruffled his calm surface and caused ripples that were beyond his control. So he would tease her that she had ‘shred’ him apart and the name kinda stayed!

There was something about her that made him call her after almost every couple of hours, for her voice would fill up some void and she would make him feel wispy like a feather! So it was difficult to say if she was more intoxicated by him or he was more enchanted by the temptress, for slowly Shreds was getting comfortable in her skin, almost sexy and beckoning!

Despite facing glitches at work, Sid had taken a day off, for this rendezvous had been the most awaited moment from the six months that they had known each other. They had planned for, imagined and relived it again and again countless times and the pleasure of seeing a dream come true was visible on both of their faces.

“Sid, we could meet up in some store of a big mall?”
“Ya, like you can go in the changing room and I can tag along as loose change...waise bhi I would get ‘loose morals syndrome’ when I’d be around you!”

“Sid, how about going for a smooch on the terrace of a five star hotel, jahan koi aata jaata nahi? Hmmmmm?”*with a proud grin for floating such a wonderful proposal*
“Darling, agar wahan koi aata jaata nahi, to hum wahan kaise pahunchenge?”*with a prouder grin, for bursting her bubble*

What had begun as a teasing, intimate friendship somehow had curved into an inseparable link of love that bound them most unreasonably and irresistibly. Two people committed and devoted to their life partners had found life and living beyond them and ‘I love you’ came out tumbling naturally like water unable to restrain when the shutters of a dam are sprung open! The best or worst part of it all was the deep physical urge that they felt for each other...an addiction...that disallowed keeping their hands off each other!

They used to often joke to lighten up the sexual tension:
“Sid, I think I am using you for your body! My ‘I love you’ is actually ‘I lust you.”
“Shreds, wow...please don’t think so much baby that you change your mind. Use and misuse me darling...I am all ready here...one wink and I’d strip...honest to goodness!”
“No yaar...I mean seriously...did you ever think you would be someone’s fantasy pin up boy?”
“Aa aa...am I now? Par ruko...I shouldn’t give in so quickly na? Nahhhhhhhhin...mere izzat se mat khelo.”
“Ab bachke kahan jaaoge raja...hehehohohaahaa...my lusty Ranjeet laugh Sid, with tongue lolling at the sight of your qatil jawaani!”

For a while they just drove around, making use of the traffic light signals to stop and stare. He spoke, she laughed...he touched and felt the softness of her arms and asked if she had just bathed with milk and creamed herself with butter and emerged before him to make him wonder if this was real. “Gawsh, I’m glad you are not married to me...imagine the cost of getting milk everyday for you to bathe in! Waise hamare shaadi ho gaye hote to hum duniye ke le lete na...that is jab ek doosre ka lena dena over hota” and the winks again!

He drove through to a coffee house facing the sea side and next to a cinema hall, for he wanted to see her face to face, before they could go in for a movie to be lost in the darkness!

“Sid, you are not that tall yaar...now that we are out of the car!
“Shreds, you are wearing heels na baby.”
“Awww...but I thought you’d be towering over me...never had six feet of length so close!”
“Darling, there are so many lengths that you can feel close today!”
“Uff*with a make-believe face of annoyance* kabhi seedhe baat ke hain aapne? I thought you were a gentleman who would never cross the line.”
“I am yaar...pucca, I would never cross the line. I’d just pull you over to my side!”

He ordered for a cappuccino and she drank some hot chocolate, after they bought tickets for the worst and most boring movie running in that multiplex. Shradha spoke to Param who had called up to find out about her progress and Sid messaged to his wife Nivedita that he won’t come home for lunch as there was an official meeting!
Occupational hazards of those employed by extra marital clutches!



Shreds handed over a gift to Sid and saw him beam like a five year old who had just grabbed a favourite toy.
“Wow! Can I open it just now? I have this thing for gifts...I just can’t wait!”
“Can you wait for anything ever, babu? Please do and I hope you like it.”
“Baby, I could have waited forever for you to say ‘yes’, at least ab yeh bolne mein kya ja raha hain, right? Hey, I am ripping apart the wrapping sheet darling, though don’t get any wrong ideas, I am much gentler when it comes to doing the same with women!”

Shradha smiled, gently pinched him and showed her tongue, “Veeeeeeeeeery funnnnny na, Sid!”
“Wow...you got me a perfume...baby, but this is very expensive!”
“Oh shut up...just spray some n tell me if you like it.”
“Hmm....wow...musky n strong, just as I like it...the fringe benefits of having a super sexy, super rich girl friend. Hey, but I didn’t get anything for you!”
“Mmm*holding his wrist*...I love it now even more since I get to sniff it off your delicious skin! You call me daily n subah shaam na baba and we spend hours on phone for which you pay...so you give a gift to me every day!”
“Awwww....n please don’t lick that hot chocolate off your lower lip like that...It makes me kinda hot!”
“You are anyways hot babu...any hotter and I’d burn by your mere touch!”
“Wait till we get inside that movie hall and I’d show you how it really burns!”

Despite herself, she couldn’t help but smile and bite her lower lip and despite himself, he raised a finger to touch the outlines of her juicy looking, protruding lips. And there was silence. They just looked at each other and became oblivious to the surroundings till the waitress brought in the cheque to be paid!

And the spell was broken again!
It was time for the movie to begin...Shradha mischievously and deliberately licked off the hot chocolate, pouting teasingly and instantly got what she aimed at...his big grin that screamed of his desire.

The movie was a boring political saga....but for Shradha and Siddharth...it was sure going to be a mind blowing adventure!

(To be continued....)