Chapter 3
Rukmani thought of the events of the evening. It was very unusual that her friend would come late, but Panchali ahd not only come late, she had also come wearing a smudged white dress, full of soil and black oily marks. When Rukmani had asked her friend about it, Panchali had simply nodded like a lost person. Rukmani had to literally shake her friend to make her talk. When Panchali had said something, it had been half mumbled words about punctured tier and wrong route. Rukmani was happy to see that her friend was safe, and by and large she had been fine too. The only thing Rukmani did not like was how her friend seemed to be hiding something from her. She could see it in Panchali's eyes that the latter had been lying that a punctured tier and a wrong route was all there was to the story. Rukmani knew there was some more, but how to find that out was the real question.
Panchali lay on her bed unable to concentrate, unable to sleep, unable to even blink her eyes. Every time her eyelids closed she went back to the garage room, where she had been an unbound prisoner. She did not want to question herself whether she had stayed there willingly or otherwise, she could have simply ran, but she had not. She had sat there in the corner of the room waiting for him to return. What would he have done after that, she did not know, but what really happened was what she had not expected. He had scrolled in the room with his tight muscled thighs, in lithe and sure strides. Panchali thought he would come towards her, but he did not. Instead he had started opening his shirt buttons. Panchali wanted to shout what the hell was he doing, but her scream dried in her mouth as her eyes fell on tightening of his shirt around his tight upper torso as he worked the buttons. Slowly-slowly his buttons were coming off, and he started humming in that gruff voice as he had forgotten that she was there. In fact Panchali realized that he truly had probably forgotten that she was still there.
He threw the shirt of floor, Panchali gulped but could not say anything. If she had imagined his body to be well built and muscled, her imagination had totally failed in understanding the perfection by large margin. Her eyes automatically roamed on lines and curves of his exposed body as he rummaged through his things, his muscles flexed as he bent up and down through his things.
Panchali noticed the scar on his back, which made him look all the more sexy and dangerous. She closed her eyes to stop looking at him, but it was a mistake, because now that half naked picture of his fixed itself on her mind like a digital snap. It played and replayed there until she reopened her eyes to shake that image, but that was also a mistake, because now he was standing in front of the mirror holding shaving razor in his hand. He had already soaped his face, and the white fame of his shaving cream was hiding his luscious hard mouth, all Panchali could see was his back, and his reflection through the mirror. To see a male shave in front of her seemed like such an intimate thing to do, and Panchali shared that first intimate moment with him, making it a memory permanently fixed in her mind.
As she lay awake in the bed, the same scenes of him removing his shirt, of him rummaging through his clothes, of him taking those shaving swipes over his manly face kept on playing to her eyes, with her mind. Panchali licked her dry lips making them wet. She did not think she will get much sleep tonight.
Arjun laid with one of his hand over his forehead as he looked at the starry sky above his head. It was a beautiful night. The wind was blowing in soft breezes toughing his cheeks and playing with his slightly long hair. Each time it blew past his ear, he would feel as if someone was speaking in soft sweet whispers to him. He raised his hand to grab something in the air. What was he doing? Why did he not tell her to go quickly? Initially when he had come back, he had forgotten that she was there, he had thrown away his shirt, and started to shave his week long stubble. He had seen through the mirror how she was looking at him. Her big eyes had become little red, and they had moved over his body in assessment. Arjun had allowed her to it, he had feigned that he did not know she was appraising him, he had in fact probably done more jerky movements in shaving than required, probably to let her see some more. She seemed like a rich innocent girl, and he had given in to her curiosity. He had liked every second of her eyes on him, all the while behaving as if she did not exist, as if he was not heating up thinking about her eyes on him, as if he had not for the first time in his life, thought of taking a stranger woman to bed and caress her until she gave in.
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