The First Time (Love in No Time #1) by Bitsi Shar Read Free Book Online

a.m. I am late already for my 9.00 a.m. meeting.
    Shit, shit, shit! Goodbye, lazy day, hello, craziness! I don’t have time for a shower. I brush my teeth; scrub my face in less than five minutes. Now for the clothes—thank god, I set them aside on the chair before I went into my funk. Its my favorite ensemble—sunflower shaded short cotton kurta and white churidaar. No duppatta today—too warm for that. I quickly brush my tangled and crazy hair. I need oil to manage these tangles. The dry heat was destroying them. Maybe I could cut them. I have had short hair before.
    Well, it was a long time ago when I was in high school. My mother got fed up of my lice-infested tresses, of treating this infestation without success. So she took me instead to Julie’s hair-cutting salon and asked her to chop it off like a boy’s head. I resisted. Actually, I might have thrown a big tantrum before and after the deed was done. So my mother took my case to the big dragon, my father, who blazed his eyes at me, told me to behave like a grown up and not like the girl that I was and that was that. I had a badly chopped head and a burning heart. I think the burn has refused to go away even though now I can do whatever I want with my hair. And then it hits me like a ton of bricks. I was meeting him for lunch or was it dinner? Damn! Why can’t I remember? I wasn’t drunk. I should remember. But I couldn’t. Now I am reconsidering my sartorial choices. Should I wear a dress instead? I know he likes “western” clothes. I have never seen him wear anything “Indian” or “ethnic” if you will, even at Indian festivals. His favorite in casual is jeans and t-shirt, soccer shorts and a wife-beater when visiting a friend in the evening for some backyard cricket or a game of soccer. But for work its always shirt, slacks, and tie with loafers. He never complimented me on Indian attires, only western ones even when I wore it with disdain and no style-sense at all. I have a feeling that his compliments on my dress style, or rather lack of it, had little to do with the style than his growing interest in me. Well, too late to change now. I couldn’t be late for the meeting anymore than I already was. So he’ll just have to bear with my sunflower mood.
    I ran out the apartment towards the main gate of the apartment complex. I look for a three-wheeler and there is one standing next to the paanwaala’s (betel-leaf seller) shop. I peek in. The driver is fast asleep in his seat.
    I call out, “bhaiya” and he jerks up, wiping his mouth of the tricking saliva.
    “Yes, madam.” He, almost as a reflex action, powers up the scooter. Smoke billows from the exhaust and before it envelopes me, I dive into the back seat, give him quick instructions about my destination and we are off. He crawls even without traffic. So I offer him fifty rupees over the metered fare if we get to my office by 9.00. It is 8:50 right now. He pumps it. And we are finally moving faster than the slowest bicycle on the side street. He is practically careening down the main road that links Vasant Kunj to the Ring road, the main artery connecting South Delhi to North Delhi. Now, I wish I hadn’t thrown in the impetus. I am hanging on to dear life as the driver now officially a madman is burning rubber on the asphalt for an extra fifty.
    I pray.
    Every Hindu/Muslim/Christian psalm I know, I now repeat in my head as if that alone could ward off a destined human mistake. I want to go to my dinner tonight, I pray.
    I want every limb safe in order to make it there. I have things to say to him and he has things to say to me. I would like very much to hear what he has to say to me face to face. I pray and plead to no one in particular. I just hope someone was listening. And with one final careen that is almost like a free wheelie one street corner before my office, we arrive.
    He brakes hard and I almost fly through the railing and onto his seat in the front. I jam my foot against the