Fling by Abhilash Gaur Read Free Book Online Page A

sun was shining through the frosted glass of my bathroom window
at an angle I had never seen before. She told me it was afternoon
and I held my head in dismay. There was a big office party that
evening. “Why didn’t you go?” I said. “It isn’t important,” she
replied, “you are all alone.”
    “I am fine now, go,” I
said. But she went to the kitchen to see what she could make for
me. There was nothing there besides water and gas, some biscuits
and half a dozen bananas.
    “Please don’t,” I
said, “believe me, I’m fine. You must go now. Really.”
    “Lie down,” she
ordered. “You still have fever,” she declared after feeling my
pulse. I didn’t want to upset her, so I lay down. She started
rubbing my forehead, and that was, I thought, beyond the line of
friendly duty. But I closed my eyes and enjoyed it with an inkling
of what was coming.
    “I think I should call
a doctor,” she said. “Stop fussing, I’m fine,” I replied.
    Such a baby you are,”
she sighed, “turn this way so that I can rub your temples properly.
It will make you feel better.” But she was stroking my cheeks as
much as my temples. Something was coming over me. I raised my head
and she kept my pillow in her lap. Now when she bent over me her
curls tickled my ears and her soft, small breasts behind the soft
cotton of her vest sponged away the remnants of my headache.
    My right arm rose
slowly, circled behind her head and brought it down to make her
lips meet mine. She gave under its pressure like warm wax.
    *
    We didn’t make love
that day. I had this block about having sex with nobody but the
girl I intended to marry, and I didn’t intend to marry her. But I
liked what we had started and wanted it to go on till the time I
found Ms Right. But I didn’t get a chance to talk to her the next
couple of days, and I wasn’t sure how things stood between us. Had
we slipped back into plain friendship or jumped orbit into being
friends with benefits?
    She didn’t come to
office the third day, and I heard from her girlfriends she was
unwell. Too much work. I always avoided going to her place because
she was a paying guest in a single mother’s house. There was no
privacy there, and I didn’t want people to think I was courting
her.
    It was after 10pm,
rather late to call, but I was desperate to find out. A dim night
light shone in their drawing room window. I rang the bell
hesitantly and was relieved when she answered it. The house was
very quiet.
    “Sorry,” I said, “I
just returned from work. How are you?”
    “I am fine, come
inside,” she said.
    “No, I’ll go. It’s
late. Will see you tomorrow morning.”
    “Come on, it’s
alright.” She caught my wrist and drew me inside.
    I left the door open
and dropped into a chair beside it. She went into their kitchen to
fetch a glass and poured me Coke from a large bottle. “Come to my
room, you’ll be more comfortable there,” she said.
    “No, I’m fine here.
Your landlady wouldn’t like it.”
    “But she’s not home.
Nobody’s home, they’ve gone to watch a movie.”
    We were in her room
the next moment, leaving the glass of Coke on the fridge-top. She
didn’t turn on the light and the room was lit only from a
streetlamp outside the open windows. We hugged and fell on her bed,
overdoing the smooching like the first time. She tugged out my
shirt and ran her hands up and down my back. I didn’t have to pull
at anything, there was nothing under her T-shirt but the pneumatic
firmness of freshly filled birthday balloons that I wanted to
feel.
    “Oh no,” I said,
stopping suddenly.
    “What’s the matter?”
she said.
    “I left the front door
open.”
    She fell back and
laughed. “You and your doors!”
    I downed the Coke at a
gulp and tucked my shirt in on the way downstairs.
    ***

Rubber
    “Why can’t you buy
some?” she pleaded with me every time. She liked it too much but
had been starved of it after separating from her husband.