Twenty-Nine
Anika
Two days later…
‘You’re really doing this?’ I squealed with a smile dancing on my lips. Then I lost my breath as my husband scooped me up in his arms and I clutched him for dear life.
Vikrant carried me over the threshold and into our room.
Actually, it wasn’t our room, as in the room of the home he’d built for me. The romantic fool. But the Bridal Suite at Kahini’s, the five star hotel at the edge of town, overlooking the beach. The suite was actually a full villa, with its own private beach access. And we were walking toward said private beach now. Me still in his arms. A tinkling fountain shot water three feet in the air in the shape of a mermaid, as we crossed it.
‘Put me down, Vikrant. Seriously. This is an expensive Patola silk sari. If you drop me on the sand and it gets on the sari, I will never forgive you,’ I grumbled, holding onto him tight enough to cut off circulation.
‘I’ll…Actually I won’t be able to afford buying it for you soon,’ he said smugly. ‘But I promise I’ll get you ten of them the first year I can afford them. Deal?’
‘What happened to that giant ego you hid behind? This man who keeps telling the truth is very…bizarre.’
‘Bizarre?’ He dropped a quick kiss on my nose, and I wobbled in his grip. ‘I don’t appreciate being called bizarre, wife.’
“Vikrant, baby…” I fingered his hair. He closed his eyes and suppressed a shudder. His pitch-black eyes going dark as night when he opened them. ‘Please, put me down? And tell me what your obsession is with carrying me everywhere?’
‘I am pro-equal opportunity, I’ll let you carry me too,’ he responded cutely.
But he did listen to my plea and let me down gently, caressing every part of me his fiendish hands could reach. My butt, my back, the back of my thighs, the dip at my waist. And he pressed me so close to him, my tits smushed against his chest.
It wasn’t supposed to be hot, dammit. Why was it hot?
‘Why am I carrying you? I pushed at his chest. He still wore the kurta pajama he’d worn for the visarjan puja.
***
We’d just finished partying with the rest of the town that basically danced for like twelve hours (afternoon to sunup) and then immersed the Lord Ganesha idols in Lake Aronda.
His parents did not question my presence at home or during the puja and the return walk back through a sleepy town. They just gave me a warm embrace I was able to return with my whole heart. Enough that I bent down and touched their feet to get their blessings, which they gave with their whole heart. (Hopefully.)
But I didn’t mind doing that, because I looked at Vikrant who was right next to me. And he was watching me with single-minded joy. Incandescent and transformative.
He loved me with his whole being. I was aware of it. It made it easier to love his parents with an ease I did not possess before.
Once we’d finished the ritual, every single one of the Pandits and one Chakraborty-Pandit had crashed and slept for a solid twelve hours.
After we woke up and we opened the outpatient clinic for a few hours, Vikrant ordered me to pack a bag and wear one of the saris Smita Kaki gifted me.
I decided to implement some Anika-isms since this was to be my home and decreed no one would cook that day – instead we ordered the most delicious food from a nearby restaurant that I insisted Aai and Smita Kaki choose.
They blushed crimson and had the best time doing it. Aai’s small smile when she caught me taking a picture of the moment was a memory I’d cherish forever.
We were slowly building a bridge built of mutual respect and love for the person we cared about the most.
After a feast of a lunch, Vikrant hurried me to get ready and then drove me out of town. And to this exclusive, fancy resort. That I was not sure he could afford. But finances were always such a sore subject for us, I did not want to bring it up now and spoil his decidedly romantic mood.
No one did romance like Vikrant when he decided to.
***
‘Because I let you do all the equal opportunity things when we first got married. No sindoor and mangalsutra. Which I am fine with, for the record,’ he stressed. ‘But we never got to enjoy the little fun rituals too, did we? Like me carrying you over the threshold of our apartment?’
‘Has reading all those romance books eaten away at your rational brain, Dr. Vikrant?’ I stared at him in stupefaction. This was not the response I expected for my question.
He shrugged. ‘We can all learn a few things from romance books, Anika. Like, taking the time to listen to each other’s heart.’ He put his hand on my heart, which beat just for him. ‘Expanding our own hearts to hold space for the other person, in their good and bad and fucking sexy moods.’ He put another hand on his own chest. ‘And learning to not hold onto all the things when we are meant to hold each other.’
‘Definitely rotting your brain,’ I murmured.
He tugged me closer with a jerk of the pallu. ‘I love you, Anika,’ he said seriously.
And he looks so deliciously yummy in the kurta pajama, all lean muscles, cut cheekbones and night eyes, I leaned in and took a luscious bite of his pink lips. He kissed me back, forcefully. Before placing his forehead against mine and breathing softly.
“’ love you and I vow to stand by you, forever.’
I heaved out a suddenly heavy breath. ‘You’re supposed to be fucking me into oblivion. Not melt my heart and make me cry.’
‘I am a doctor. I can multi-task like a pro.’
‘I love you too,’ I whispered. ‘I love you so much I’ll haunt your fucking dreams if you fuck things up between us again. And,’ honesty made me add, ‘I’ll not become so blind to your needs while I work at my career. At least, I’ll try my hardest not to.’
‘I can’t wait to watch you achieve incredible things with your career, Dr. Anika. I’m thinking Surgeon General of India in twenty years, baby.’ He cupped my cheek and ran a thumb over it. His eyes lit up by the prospect of seeing me succeed. He meant it.
‘You don’t…’ I swallowed. ‘Do you think this place will give us a refund if we tell them we didn’t use the facilities?’
Vikrant blinked.
I rushed to explain, ‘I know…it must have cost an insane amount to book this place on short notice. I mean, they actually have gold-plated jewelry, Vikrant. And those flowers are fresh. They’re hydrangeas. Obviously, they’re being flown in or driven in.’ I frowned. ‘And that four-poster bed is French furniture, which I find slightly racist. We have plenty of great craftsmen in India too. We don’t need to go French for class.’
Vikrant laughed, from his heart and hugged me close with a little too much force. I flailed around in his arms, and he went flying backward. So, we both landed inelegantly on the water, half sitting in the water.
‘The marble is Italian and mined from the quarry the hotel owner has a stake in. And I think the diamonds on the lobby chandelier are the real deal,’ Vikrant said solemnly.
I stared at him, bemused. ‘How do you know all this?’
‘Ansh Thackeray owns this place. You know, the mega hotelier?’
I did know the name. He was a serious hottie businessman whose social media posts were all about holding his singer-songwriter wife, Kahini, close and gazing adoringly at her at exotic locales all over the world. And the business pages reported on his exploits, along with the other filthy rich men he did business with.
‘I see.’ I saw nothing but I wasn’t going to let Vikrant get the best of me.
‘Then you also see that Ansh owes me a favor for bringing his child safely into the world, last year when he and his very pregnant wife were here to oversee the hotel opening. And he said at the end of the birth, ‘I owe you, Pandit. I owe you big’.’ Vikrant shrugged modestly, his black kurta sticking to his chest, turning transparent in the water. ‘I figured this was as good a time as any to collect.’
‘You could have asked anything you wanted from a multi-millionaire, and you chose a night in the bridal suite of a hotel?’ I asked slowly.
‘It’s actually seven nights in the bridal suite,’ he corrected me. ‘With time off for work. But yes, that’s what I wanted.’
I could never figure this man out. I was going to spend a lifetime trying to. ‘You’re mad.’
‘For you.’ He brought me closer slowly.
And I became aware of how wet and sandy my sari was. But I went forward and landed on his lap, the sari sort of ballooning between us. Weighing us down in this moment, this place.
‘I’m.’ Kiss. ‘So.’ Kiss. ‘Mad.’ Kiss. ‘For.’ Kiss. ‘You. Long, toe-curling kiss. ‘Wife.’
My lips tingled by the time he was done with me. Nails digging grooves in his skin.
“I’m mad for you too, husband.” I fingered the simple silver chain and the ring I wore on it. I couldn’t wear a mangalsutra when women’s equality was a thorny issue in the world (although if that’s what someone else wants to do it’s totally on them), but I wanted a tangible symbol of belonging with Vikrant Pandit.
I had earned it.
He touched the ring he wore too, a twin of mine. I was thinking of getting it engraved with the date we became whole again, day before yesterday. But that was for a later date.
***
“So, what now?” I asked him, settled comfortably in a most uncomfortable position.
The ocean lapped lazily around us; its sounds muted against the racing of our hearts. In sync. Beating together.
Yes, it’s possible, and not an exaggeration. Swimmers and rowers and dancers do it all the time. Someone has possibly published a medical research paper on the possible hypothesis for sure.
“You decide.”
“What would happen if this were one of your romance books?” I was playful, shoving the collar of his kurti aside and kissing his collarbone.
“Well…we’d fuck here. Since we are done with the declarations of love. And it’s almost the end of the night.” He caught my bare waist and pulled me closer to his arousal.
I smiled wickedly. And climbed his lap to straddle him. “Ten saris the year you can afford it, right?”
“What?” His eyes crossed and his breath hitched because I was also rubbing myself against his cock. “What did you say, sweetheart?”
“Nothing. Just fuck me like we are at the end of a romance novel, okay?”
He opened his night-dark eyes and regarded me with quiet wonder.
My smile shimmered at the edges. Because I remembered that boy who’d sat next to me in Anatomy class and given me his pen to share. And I remembered the man who’d promised to marry me and protect me and cherish me and keep me for seven lifetimes. And the man who’d chosen himself so he could find me in the end.
And they were all this man. This insanely unpredictable, incredibly handsome, highly capable, romantic man.
“Yeah,” Vikrant said clearly. And smiled that smile that had pierced my heart all those years ago.
“Finally.”