I walk home with her, unable to look at her. The girl’s hair resembled what hers look when she styled them, tame, unlike me. But, how can cotton substitute for the luxury of satin?
The girl, her name is Anne, is a twenty year old white woman who looked nothing my wife. My wife is a whiff of fresh cool air on a humid hot day but at the same time warm to touch. She smelled like coconuts and jasmine. When she does her makeup, she tells me that she is neutral toned. I thought she had expected me to understand her cosmetic jargon, but to my relief she goes on to explain that she tends to be bluish. Although, it never made sense to me, as she was as brown as the coconuts she smells of. She just... looks like my wife. Her flush doesn’t show up on her skin, rather her eyes. Her beautiful eyes look like pools of honey when the sun caresses her skin in the morning, making her look like a primordial goddess.
I looked at the girl beside me, Anne. She seems to flush as she holds my hands. She is a very beautiful young lady but can she ever be at par with my wife? Finding out that I had been starting at her, she broke into a cheeky grin with dimples. My wife had no dimples yet her smile was much sweeter, like ambrosia, immortalizing me and my memories.
I realized that we were in a room, already checked in.
I still remember when my wife sat me down with a, “Can we talk?”
The way her eyes shone with unshed tears, her face remaining stoic and resolved as she told me, “William, let’s open our marriage.” I had been in a daze since. I remembered walking off but I don’t remember feeling anything. That’s what repression does to you, I guess.
I was still in an auto-pilot mode when Shraddha, my beautiful, antagonizing wife send me off with Anne. People usually don’t have the luxury of panic when things such as this occurs and I was no different.
I had my back to the girl. I could hear the rustling of clothes, the clinking of the belt as it hit the floor and the buzzing silence in the background indicating what is to ensue next.
She deserves the truth. I turned around. She had already gotten rid of her clothes, standing there with her small perky breasts, her small sucked in belly. She had a few tattoos littered her skin. I dare not look lower lest she thinks the worst. She looks at me, puzzled, as if asking me to attack her ferociously with kisses and then make love to her. Women like her perhaps are used to that. I stood there fully clothed, guilty and completely unaroused. How could I when my beautiful woman is at home, in her small fluffy tummy, fuller breasts and clear skin?
“Well...?” Anne asks. She seems to be a little irritated.
“I can’t. I have a wife. The girl who introduced us, she is my wife.” I said, in a low voice. How can man who deals with drugs be so cowardly? A man who domineered the streets? But what can a man do, when her wife’s at home waiting for him?
“I know. Your wife, what’s her name? Ah yes, Shraddha! Shraddha set me up with you.”
“You are a prost-”
“No. I am just your silent admirer. I was in the station a couple of times, my ex-husband used to be there a lot.” She looked at me bewildered.
“Whatever! I can’t.”
“C’mon, I know you want it.” She said with a wink. This just disgusted me further. No, this is not working, this can’t work! What were you thinking, Shraddha?
“No.” I declared. I look a hundred dollar bill, bent down and put it down in front of her and without another word, I left. That day, I ran like a mad man as anger and grief threatened consumed me.
My wife, my sweet wife! How could you? Was there another man? Was I too busy at work? Did I not take care of her enough? NO! She wouldn’t, would she?
I stood in front of our house, despair coating my heart. Only one light was turned on in the room. I opened the door and went up to the only room illuminated our bedroom. Was she...? Fear gripped at my soul as I approached our bedroom. I could hear soft muffled cries. My heart sank. Almost instinctively, I pushed the door open and there was my wife, all alone. Relief warmed my heart. Her face mirrored my feelings.
“M-my love! I thought you would be out all night!” She said, her eyes red tears staining her beautiful face as she tried to hide the evidence of her crying. But, the damage was done. I had witnessed her abjection.
I approached her and sank to my feet, near the bed where she was seated. I remember gripping her small delicate hands as I cried for the first time in years, right there, on her lap. Then, as abruptly as the tears had ensued, it stopped. I looked at her face. Fresh had made their way on her cheeks.
“Why?” That was all I had uttered, before she erupted into sobs as she threw her hands around me. Surprised at the much needed assault, I had kept myself from falling. Now, we both are on the floor. She was reduced to a mere bundle of sobs and ‘sorry’s’.
When she had calmed down, she poured out her insecurity to the person who is truly unworthy of her love, who couldn’t even obliterate her insecurities.
“I-I had always thought I am undeserving of you. You weren’t like this when I met you. You were wild and you had a lot of fun. But, after you married me, I had turned you domestic. Intimacy had always scared me, it still does. I have heard stories about you and how you were before you met me, and, as much it hurts for me to admit it, I can never be her. I don’t have it in me to do so.” She rambled on without taking so much as a breath.
“Oh my little baby. Breathe for me, breathe.” I urged the little thing in my arms. I lifted her chin up, “I was wild because I had nothing to settle into. I had no roots, and people with no roots tend to wander. You root me, ground me.. If I were stranded on the sea, you are the island that comforts my soul. You are my anchor, my other half.”
She looked at me, relief washing through her. Then, she looked wary and said, “Lately, you have been very stressed. You have been home later. On top of that, I can’t even get you a child. I thought, if Anne got pregnant, then you could go and live the life you wanted.”
I stared at her shocked. I have met several people throughout the ages but no one had deprived me of my speech. I do share a lot of my firsts with her, this, the newest addition.
“That was your way of getting rid of me? You knew that divorce wasn’t an option so, you would resort to this?”
“No no!” She shook her head furiously, “I just want you to be happy.” She told me, her voice hoarse and guilty and pleading at the same time.
I always knew her love was self destructive. When her family had demeaned her, she had laughed at their very malevolent jokes. She had given away her very expensive jewelry to her elder sister, without much of a thought, who had lost it and had reprimanded her when she had gotten ‘disrespectful’ with her tone. My wife had just asked in a very disappointed tone, ‘How?’ When her aunt had told her to lose weight for me, she had just smiled. My wife was too sweet and in doing so, she was bitter to the person I love more than the being who hung the sun in the sky. Her, she was bitter to herself.
“My happiness lies with you. I had fallen in love with your unwavering goodwill towards others. Your attitude that would make a pessimist scrunch their nose and talk about how menacing the world is. I fell in love with your kindness, your overbearingly generous and selfless nature. Your tendency to serve without a return. But, I have also seen you get angry and hold your weight when someone would wrong you. You would stand up against the wrong like a 100 year old tree, immovable! I love you! I don’t love what you can be or what you can give me. I love you because, you are simply Shraddha.”
Tears streamed down her face and I give in to my urge to kiss them away. I wanted to say more, I wanted to tell her off about her self-destructive nature. However, I decided that it was for some other day.
That night, when I held her in bed, I realized that I had experienced love of the truest kind. As I kissed her forehead, I watched her chest heave gently; I felt grateful that this woman had made me feel so many kinds of love.