She waited 30 minutes or more for him to show up. When he finally did, she hid her elation on seeing him after more than a month, in being miffed at him for being late. He didn't miss the effort.
She loved bike rides, but more so she loved being up close to him, holding him, basking in the musky smell on his neck & knowing that he couldn't see it...A brief ride around her favourite beautiful stretch of the city later, they came back home & sat on the terrace, high above the city - as they always had. He with a drink in his hands, she with a glass of wine, spilling over with mixed emotions. The moon was hidden in a thicket of clouds, the air was chilly with a slight drizzle & the night was completely silent, save for their own attempts at a conversation.
They made small talk, catching up on mundanaties of each other's lives , noone really caring or paying attention, even. "How could a night be more perfect; how could she be sharing it with a person she would rather not share with anyone else, " and yet the pathos of it all, was not lost on her.
They both liked talking about a lot of things and making jokes and laughing. But a part of her at that moment wanted him to talk about her, them, work up the talk to something meaningful...but the tension building up in the air between them augmented by the brilliant ambience, noone needed to say anything. The touch of her feet on his lap & vice versa was not helping. They knew the process. Only too well. She was only too aware of his intensions, too familiar with his body and he of hers. It was only a matter of when, rather than what, why and how. Resistance had been none of their fortes.
What transpired came as neither surprising nor awkward to either of them. They were just playing out a pre-orchestrated gig they had mastered over the times. She wanted this, to be one with him. He initiated it to be the one in her. She was closest to the man she had struggled to push away most of their times together. But she knew this was not for hers forever. She was not sure if he was hers, even that night. Of all the things he could be, of all the things that they could share, of all the things the person in her could be, it pained her to know that all he had relegated her to was a body capable of making him happy.
He was done. He was picking up his belongings scattered all over the room, the 'love shack' as she called it. But what she saw was, with every thing he picked up off the floor, he was breaking a part of her, from the parts that were already broken, repaired, broken again, holding together by a glue of a combination of love, reluctant but persistent, foiled by regular hatred, & hope from her side.
With a curt 'gotta go' he took away everything that was ethereal about that night. As he had done, almost every single night they had met... But she knew this time, he had indeed ' gotta go' ...
The door closed with a weak thud, loud enough to evoke an unheard resolve in her. She typed it all, every unspoken, submerged, controlled emotion, in black and white.
Her phone screen cracked from a fall the next morning...She had read the sign. He didn't need to reply.... Even though he did with an "ok" ...
She loved bike rides, but more so she loved being up close to him, holding him, basking in the musky smell on his neck & knowing that he couldn't see it...A brief ride around her favourite beautiful stretch of the city later, they came back home & sat on the terrace, high above the city - as they always had. He with a drink in his hands, she with a glass of wine, spilling over with mixed emotions. The moon was hidden in a thicket of clouds, the air was chilly with a slight drizzle & the night was completely silent, save for their own attempts at a conversation.
They made small talk, catching up on mundanaties of each other's lives , noone really caring or paying attention, even. "How could a night be more perfect; how could she be sharing it with a person she would rather not share with anyone else, " and yet the pathos of it all, was not lost on her.
They both liked talking about a lot of things and making jokes and laughing. But a part of her at that moment wanted him to talk about her, them, work up the talk to something meaningful...but the tension building up in the air between them augmented by the brilliant ambience, noone needed to say anything. The touch of her feet on his lap & vice versa was not helping. They knew the process. Only too well. She was only too aware of his intensions, too familiar with his body and he of hers. It was only a matter of when, rather than what, why and how. Resistance had been none of their fortes.
What transpired came as neither surprising nor awkward to either of them. They were just playing out a pre-orchestrated gig they had mastered over the times. She wanted this, to be one with him. He initiated it to be the one in her. She was closest to the man she had struggled to push away most of their times together. But she knew this was not for hers forever. She was not sure if he was hers, even that night. Of all the things he could be, of all the things that they could share, of all the things the person in her could be, it pained her to know that all he had relegated her to was a body capable of making him happy.
He was done. He was picking up his belongings scattered all over the room, the 'love shack' as she called it. But what she saw was, with every thing he picked up off the floor, he was breaking a part of her, from the parts that were already broken, repaired, broken again, holding together by a glue of a combination of love, reluctant but persistent, foiled by regular hatred, & hope from her side.
With a curt 'gotta go' he took away everything that was ethereal about that night. As he had done, almost every single night they had met... But she knew this time, he had indeed ' gotta go' ...
The door closed with a weak thud, loud enough to evoke an unheard resolve in her. She typed it all, every unspoken, submerged, controlled emotion, in black and white.
Her phone screen cracked from a fall the next morning...She had read the sign. He didn't need to reply.... Even though he did with an "ok" ...
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