Seven
Vikrant
I couldn’t get Anika’s sleeping face out of my mind as I drove to the hospital on autopilot. Truth be told; I couldn’t get the thing she’d told me when she showed up at the bus stop. And I could finally believe she was here. In front of me. With me.
I couldn’t get her out of my head at all.
Especially when her sexy shorts rode up and revealed all the golden skin of her legs. She always had great legs, my Ani. And she walked up and down stairs instead of using the elevator as her everyday version of cardio. It paid off, in spades and shapely calves.
I wondered how she’d have reacted if I touched her thigh, right at the spot where fabric met skin. Just to check for myself if she was as soft and squeezable as she’d always been.
I knew she was surprised, wary even, because I made no comment about her outfit. It was a little racy for my small town where some of the older women still wore the navvaari – the traditional nine-yard sari - on an everyday basis. It was one of our points of argument before. How Anika dressed in Aronda. She didn’t prance around in a bikini or anything like that, but she was also not the dress demurely and mindfully types.
I’d foolishly thought to change that about her. When I could have just adjusted my own thinking and maybe figured out a rational way to compromise on the clothing issue. Instead, I’d flung the fact that I still wore full pants at her face. Like I was some saint for being modest, when it was just me not establishing boundaries with my parents.
How could I though? I was their golden son. The city doctor. The one Mom had sold her jewelry for, to send off to medical college. I could never repay the debt I owed them. I was the typical Indian son, trapped by my parents’ expectations and unable to live in my reality.
***
I checked in on supplies at the hospital and fired off requests to the local pharmacist on the stock we were running low on. Then I settled in the exam room for my first patient. Somedays, the waiting room was full of patients with the strangest and smallest of complaints.
Other days, it was just me waiting for someone to need medical assistance.
When the town council had appointed me as the town doctor, I was beyond grateful. I was incredibly proud of myself. Especially because one of the council members was multi-millionaire Devansh Thackeray, international hotelier and owner of the fanciest place in town – Kahini’s. He was the one who forced the mayor to hire me, in fact. I thought it was because he trusted my judgment and was impressed with me. Turns out, I was just the cheapest candidate, because of my lack of seniority.
Still, I’d managed to bring about some radical changes at the hospital and instituted weekend health camps and information seminars for the locals and for the residents of nearby towns too. I was determined to make a difference, and I was lucky I could do it in my hometown. A place I was very comfortable in and invested in.
Unlike Anika, who shone everywhere she went.
And there she was, circling in my brain. The thought that never went away. Like a perfume whose scent drifts on and on, making you feel all the things.
I wished I’d held her closer, tighter when I picked her up from the passenger seat. That brief contact of her body with mine was enough to remind me of the curves I had never forgotten, the lush and compact physique she maintained with exercise and no diet.
Her tits and chest pressed against mine, her back so soft under the shirt flapping about her. It was a size too large and slid off her shoulder. I’d wanted to know if it belonged to some man she knew, but it wasn’t my place to ask her that.
I just let her go. Again.
Desire, a constant obstacle, reared its head again now. And I shifted uncomfortably in my stool.
Ping. A text notification buzzed on my phone.
I opened it pathetically quickly, eager to see if it was my wife needing something. After all, it was a new home, a new space for her. And even though she was truly adaptable, sleeping anywhere she could find, I hoped she saw the little touches in the house I’d built over the last year…
It was Sagar. My cousin.
Did you bring Bhabhi back safely and without World War Three?
I sent him a fuck you emoji. Irked at the playful way he referred to Anika as Bhabhi, Hindi for sister-in-law.
He sent me one back but then followed it up with, Seriously, Viku. You shouldn’t have played on her sympathies to bring her back. You can just tell your parents the truth, you know? Divorce is not the end of the world.
Really? Then why did it feel like mine had ended when I saw her signature on the petition?
***
I was about to respond when Sagar sent another text. I’m sorry. I know it’s none of my business. And that you’re hurting. It’s just…it won’t be good for your hurt to see her again, will it?
But it does. I replied back before I could stop myself.
And it was true. The second I saw Anika at the bus stop, a shimmering jewel in a sea of grey and green, I was okay again. I could breathe again. That tender wound in my heart which throbbed with every beat, subsided at her presence. It was unfair. It was underhanded. And yes, I should tell my parents the truth, that they got their wish and my wife was gone. But I couldn’t.
Because, facing this holiday without her, like I had last year was unbearable to me.
And maybe she didn’t love me anymore, maybe this was just pity, but I would take what I could get.
It does, Sagar. Everything’s better with her around. This town. Those four walls I call home. My self. Everything works with her. Is it so bad to want to hold onto that for seven days?
Sagar sent me the SMH emoji– which is shake my head. And then said , You’re hopeless. And if she is here, it seems she might be too. Give my love to her, okay?
I snorted. Fuck no. If anyone was giving their love to Anika, it was me. If she’d ever have me. Until then, I’d just daydream about the way she’d clutched the book, my book ‘Heartbreak Vows’ to her chest. It was about a couple who’d lost each other when they were young and were forced to marry each other as adults for reasons and spend all their time with each other, rediscovering all the things they had lost.
It was heartbreaking and affirming at the same time. The main reason I loved reading romances. They came with a neat happy ever after, no matter how fucked up the situation was.
And those spicy scenes were…
I squirmed in my seat again. I did not want to think of spicy scenes and Anika and me recreating them in my place of work. Especially when a patient could walk in any moment.