Chapter 14
My eyes jerk up to his face. “Except what?”
God, I sound so hopelessly hopeful.
So hopelessly pathetic.
But I don’t think he notices.
He’s busy elsewhere.
He’s busy looking at me.
Because while my eyes are on his face, his are roving all over my body. Ever since he shut us off in the closet, he hasn’t looked anywhere else but at my face, but now his eyes are traveling. Observing. Surveying.
They’re at my throat, taking in my lavish necklace made of gold and red beads. At my ears, taking in the jewelry that I’m wearing there as well. He’s taking in my costume, the traditional Indian dress in red and gold, along with my henna tattoo, my bangles, and rings. He even goes down to my ankles that are decorated with a henna tattoo as well along with tinkling anklets on each foot.
“Except”—he picks up the thread from before, his voice sounding both thick like his eyes and edgy like this body—“this is goodbye, isn’t it?”
I thought our phone call from last night was goodbye, so I should be glad it wasn’t. That I got more time with him. I shouldn’t be greedy.
Still, my heart squeezes. “Yes.”
“Goodbyes are important,” he says.
I swallow. “Yeah.”
“Sometimes more important than hello,” he keeps going.
I simply nod, my heart aching.
“And isn’t there a thing called story coming full circle in the end,” he says, a light frown between his brows, “in theater, I mean.”
I think about his words for a second. “You mean like break a leg?”
“Yeah.” His eyes flick back and forth between mine. “It means after a long turn of events, you end up in the same situation that you started with.”
“O-kay,” I say, confused as to where he’s going.
“So since this is the end, doesn’t it make sense that we come full circle too?”
Slowly, something is happening to my heart. I don’t know what, but it’s starting to beat. And it’s starting to beat right. “How?”
He licks his lips. “Well, the night we met, you had a costume on.”
I’m hanging on to his every word like they’re diamonds. “Yeah.”
“And here you are, at the end, in a costume again.”
“I am.”
“And while a white dress and a pair of fake wings were easy to figure out, I don’t know what you’re wearing tonight.”
“You want to know what I’m wearing tonight?”
“Tell me.”
And there it is.
The relief I’ve been searching for.
It’s completely irrational and nonsensical. Much like the things he’s just said.
The things he’s said don’t make sense, do they?
They’re just an excuse, a very flimsy one, to linger.
He wants to linger.
Right?
Something I wanted to come up with but couldn’t. So he did. And I know, I know in my heart, that he did it for me. He came up with this excuse for me.
Because that’s all we have, I realize.
All we have are excuses. Because he’s my boyfriend’s twin brother and this is the only way we can be around each other. By making weak rationalizations. At least for tonight. At least until Shepard comes back tomorrow.
So I look down at myself and whisper, “This is a saree.”
“A saree.”
I look up. “Yes. It’s a traditional Indian dress.”
“Tell me about it.”
Swallowing, I blush.
“So there’s a top-like thingy called a blouse”—I point to the golden straps on my shoulders and his gaze flicks to it; the blouse I’m wearing is red in color and shows a ton of my cleavage, stopping just below my breasts, leaving my midriff bare—“and then there’s yards of fabric that’s sort of draped around my body and tucked around my waist, which is the actual saree.”
My saree is also red in color also with a golden border and a matching golden sequin sewn all over; I wave my hand at my waist to show him where I’ve tucked it in to hold it in place and his eyes go there, making my bare skin tingle.
Then I move on to the last part of the saree that’s draped over my torso and slung over one of my shoulders. “And this is the loose end of the saree called pallu, that goes over my shoulder.”
“And what does that do?” he asks.
I lift my eyes back to him and even though I knew where he’d be looking, it still makes me shudder. It still halts my breath to find his eyes on my chest. It still makes my breasts feel heavy, tingly.
Just like the night of the charity event.
“It’s…” I try to answer him. “It’s supposed to cover up…”
“Cover up what?” he asks, keeping his eyes glued to my heaving chest.
“I… It…” I try again. “Well, it goes over my shoulder as you can see and… What are you doing?”
I’m not sure why I asked because I know exactly what he’s doing.
Exactly what he’s done. He has leaned closer to me, and he has tucked his finger—long and graceful—under the edge of my pallu.
He has curled his finger under the fabric.
And before I can take another breath, he tugs at it and the pallu comes slithering down and away from my body. Where he catches it in his fist.
“Seeing,” he says, his eyes on my bared skin now.
My bared and shivering skin.
Of my midriff, my chest.
His eyes on my tits that bounce with every broken breath I take. On my nipples that were hard before, yes, but they’re so very, very hard now.
Painfully hard.
“W-what?” I stutter, my legs shaking.
“This is full circle, isn’t it?”
“Uh-huh.”
“So in order for it to be full circle, I need to see. Like I could in your white dress,” he explains before looking up and continuing, “And now I can.”
“But y-you’re not supposed to do that,” I blurt out.
“No?”
“No, you’re not supposed to…” I swallow, pressing my palm harder on the wall. “To pull at my pallu like that.”
“Why not?”
“Because that’s… That’s the point.”
“What’s the point?”
“That’s the point of a pallu. It’s supposed to cover my body. It’s supposed to p-protect me. When a man pulls on a girl’s pallu, it’s… It means he has bad intentions.”
That’s what my biji told me once when we were watching this movie, where the guy pulls on the girl’s saree and exposes her. I mean, I could gather that from the scene, but she told me that a pallu is the symbol of respect and dignity. It’s a symbol of a woman’s modesty and in Indian culture if a guy pulls on it or tugs it away from her body, he’s not the kind of guy you want to associate with.
“Bad intentions,” he repeats on a murmur.
“Yes.”
Another little movement accompanies his response.
It’s accompanied by him leaning forward even more, to the point where I feel the tails of his suit jacket rustling against my saree-covered thighs. Then he puts his fisted hand—the hand that’s clutching my pallu—on the wall by my waist and looks down at me. “I remember someone having bad intentions that night too.”
I crane my neck up at him. “The guy in the c-car?”
“The dickhead in the car, yeah.”
“You told me not to go with him.”
“I did.”
“You protected me from him,” I remind him.
Something moves through his face.
Something too grave, too heavy for the comment I just made. It wasn’t exactly light, my reminder, but it wasn’t this laden with things either.
As laden as he appears in this moment.
So much so that his gaze turns thick as he looks down at me. His voice turns almost guttural as he says, “And I will do that.”
“What?”
“I will always protect you.”
I believe him.
I totally and absolutely believe him.
And I absolutely know how ridiculous it is because of the things he’s done. Yes, he took them back, but that doesn’t change the fact that he did them in the first place. Not to mention, look what he’s doing now. He has me partially undressed. So my belief should be ridiculous.
But I still have it and it’s unshakeable.
I glance down at his hand, the one clutching the pallu of my saree, keeping me exposed to his molten eyes. Then, looking up, “I know.”
His grip tightens, tugging at my pallu as he comes even closer. “And you do need protection because we both know what happens next, don’t we?”
I do.
I absolutely do.
“Yes,” I whisper with wide eyes.
“Tell me.”
“I ask you to…” I hiccup. “But you can’t. You can’t kiss me and you definitely can’t touch my...”
Something akin to torment flashes through his eyes. I can’t fully read it, but whatever I can tells me it’s there.
“No, I can’t.”
My chest shudders with my breaths, as tortured as that look in his eyes and crazily, I begin, “But it…”
“It breaks the circle, doesn’t it,” he completes my thought.
Swallowing thickly, I nod. “It ruins the ending.”
God, this is crazy.
This is so, so crazy. It doesn’t make sense. It does not make sense at all, what we’re saying, what we’re doing. We need to leave. We should get out of the closet. But for the life of me, I can’t make my legs move.
For the life of me, I can’t seem to walk away from him.
“So there’s only one thing we can do, isn’t there?” he rasps.
I look at him with pleading eyes. “What?”
“You do it for me.”
“W-what?”
He comes ever so closer, his eyes glinting. “If I can’t touch your tits, then you’re going to have to touch them. For me.”
“You want me to?—”
“Yeah.”
“But…”
“That’s the only way this can happen.”
I bite my lip, my heart racing like crazy. “I’m… I don’t…”
“Do it,” he commands, licking his lips. “Unbutton your blouse.”
My chest is heaving, caving in on itself. “I… My blouse?”
“Yeah, unbutton it.”
“What? I… No.”
That’s the right answer, isn’t it?
It doesn’t feel like it, but it is. And I’m proud of myself for finally saying something that makes sense. For finally acting like a rational human being instead of this lovesick, lustsick, heartsick, just sick, sick, sick girl.
I can’t do this.
I absolutely cannot do this.
But I want to do this.
I so, so want to do this.
And I don’t know how to make myself do it and…
My thoughts break when I notice something passing through his features at my no. Something dark and dangerous and oh so cold and yet so beautiful. That it takes my breath away. It makes my fingers tingle, itching to do what he’s asking me to.
“That’s the thing, though,” he says, lowering his face toward me.
I inch up mine until I think we’re breathing over each other. “What thing?”
“If you don’t unbutton your blouse, I’m going to have to make you.”
“You—”
“I’m going to have to force it.” He licks his lips. “And you remember what will happen if I do it, don’t you? I told you. That night.”
He did.
He told me, the night of the charity event, what will happen if he has to force me.
“Y-yes.”
“Tell me,” he invites. “Tell me what will happen if I put my hands on your tiny little blouse.”
“You will r-rip it,” I say, my voice barely there. “You’ll rip my blouse. You’ll tear my buttons. You’ll…”
“I’ll what?”
“You’ll…” God, my heart is pounding and pounding. “You’ll wreck my dress and strip me naked.”
“Yeah, I will,” he confirms, his gaze swirling. “If I get my hands on your blouse, it won’t survive the night. Your tiny little buttons will be a thing of history and all the things your pallu is supposed to cover will spill out in the open. For everyone to see. And of course that will piss me off. You know that, don’t you? Not only because I’ll be forced to ruin this sparkly dress fit for a fiery fucking princess like you, my Lolita, but also because they’ll all get to see what only I have the right to.”
At his words, I swear I feel my buttons strain. “But you don’t?—”
“So isn’t it better if you just do as I tell you and both your dress and the people who may see what I don’t want them to see get to live a long and a happy life?”
“Yes.”
“So then why don’t you do the honors?”
And I finally understand.
I finally believe what he told me. About his blackmail being a favor to me. Because then I could pretend I didn’t want it. I didn’t want that one night with him. I could lie and say that he made me do it.
But it’s not true, is it?
I haven’t let myself think about his one-night proposition beyond what is appropriate and proper. But I’m thinking now, and I realize that I wanted—want—it so badly. I wanted that one night with him so, so badly that given the first chance, I would’ve taken it and run to him.
I would’ve ruined everything before fixing it.
And then I would’ve blamed myself.
So he took the blame away. He took the blame on himself. He did it to protect me even when he was trying to hurt me.
He’s doing the same thing here.
Because I’m dying to show him my tits.
I’ve been dying ever since I met him and so he’s making it so that I can. Without drowning in guilt, without blaming myself.
God, I love?—
No, no, no.
I don’t.
I can’t.
This is all there is. This one night.
I lick my lips. “But I… This is blackmail.”
“I am a man with bad intentions.”
No, he’s not.
He’s so not.
“If I… If I do this, you’ll give me my pallu back?”
He stares at my lips for a moment before saying, “Cross my heart.”
And then I can’t stop the urgency in my hands. I want to rip my own buttons for him. For this man who’s pretending to be bad for me so I could pretend to be good. I work as fast as I can and then my fronts are hanging loose. They’re fluttering, grazing my skin with every heavy breath I take. With every heavy breath he takes as well.
That I can feel wafting over my face, my forehead.
I can hear it too.
And it wavers, his breath, before turning even noisier as I part my blouse and show him what he wants to see.
My tits.
I even go so far as to cup them and lift them up and away from my body, my back arched, offering them to him.
“Like this?” I ask.
He releases a harsh breath, his eyes glued to my mounds. “Yes.”
I squeeze them slightly. “Do you… Do you like them?”
His other hand comes up and for a second, for a very, very short second, I think he’s going to touch them. That he’s going to cross the line and touch his twin brother’s girlfriend, but he doesn’t.
He smacks his other palm on the wall, by the side of my head, and rumbles, “Do I like them?”
“Yes.” I squeeze them again, lifting them up. “Do you like my tits?”
His jaw clenches. “Yeah.”
“I’ve wanted to show them to you for so long.”
He leans closer, putting pressure on his arms, doing a push-up as if. “I know.”
“For so, so long, Stellan.”
“Fuck,” he groans.
I squeeze them tightly, bringing them together and pulling them apart. “Thank you for making me.”
His eyes are glued to my tits and my working hands. “They’re so…”
“They’re so what?”
“Soft,” he breathes out. “They look so fucking soft. They look… I…”
He shakes his head, trailing off.
“You can’t find the words?”
“Fuck no,” he says, shaking his head again, his eyes still pinned on my tits.
I squeeze them again and again, bringing them together, pulling them apart as I say, “Soft is nice.”
“Fuck soft.”
“They’re also…”
“Also what?”
“Heavy,” I confess. “They feel so heavy. So swollen. And achy.”
A vein pulsates on his temple. “Achy.”
“Uh-huh. It’s like something…” I swallow. “S-something is making them all full and tingly and stretching them out and I don’t… It hurts, Stellan. It?—”
“Your nipples,” he says.
“What?”
“Pull them.”
My hands stop. “I-I don’t…”
“Tug at them. Tweak them.”
“But I?—”
Looking up for a second, he says, “Or I’ll do it.”
I shudder. “You… But won’t it make me hurt more? I?—”
“No,” he rumbles. “It’ll make you feel better.”
“Playing with my nipples?”
“Yeah.” He clenches his jaw. “Do it. Play with your fucking nipples, Dora.”
And even though I know it’s not true, even though I know we’re making excuses and playing with my nipples won’t make me feel better at all, I still do it.
Because he told me to.
Because I want to.
I tug at my nipple and moan, my eyes fluttering closed.
And he groans.
Opening my eyes, I notice he’s back to staring at my tits, at my working hands, and I ask, “L-like this?”
“Harder.”
So I do it harder. I pull at them with my forefinger and thumb as I moan, “Stellan, I?—”
“Twist them,” he orders next, his voice low and rough.
Dark like the rest of him.
Commanding.
And once again, I obey.
I twist my nipples and I do it so hard that I can’t help but come off the wall. I can’t help but arch my back and moan out his name once again, my tits jiggling with my broken breaths.
“Fuck, fuck,” he growls, “fuck.”
“Stellan, I think?—”
“Distract me.”
“What?”
Veins stand taut on the side of his neck as he snaps his eyes up. “Tell me what else you’re wearing.”
I pause. “W-why?”
“Because,” he says with clenched teeth, “if it’s hurting you, showing me your tits, you bet your ass it’s hurting me too. If your tits feel all full and swollen, you bet your fucking ass I’m full and swollen too. I’m achy too, Dora. Because like you, I’ve wanted to see your tits for a long, long time as well. Like you, I’ve dreamed about seeing them. And I don’t know much about dreams, but I do know that when they come true and when they come true in a way that’s spectacular and exceeds all your goddamn expectations, then it’s very likely that it blows your mind. It’s very fucking likely that in this case, I’m going to blow in my motherfucking pants. Because I’m full and swollen and goddamn hurting in my dick and aside from blowing in my pants like an unruly teenager who has zero impulse control, there’s also a very high possibility of me blowing on your swollen and full tits. There’s a very high possibility that I blow so much that I paint your tits with my spunk and drip down your cherry fucking nipples like milk. So before I do any of that”—he jerks his chin up, motioning toward my ear—“tell me what that is.”
As soon as I get his meaning, my eyes are ready to go down, ready to see the evidence.
He’s hard, isn’t he? That’s what he means.
But he doesn’t let me.
“Don’t,” he orders.
“What?”
“Don’t you fucking dare,” he warns.
“But I?—”
“You’re not putting your hungry fucking eyes on my dick,” he says with his teeth clenched. “And they’re hungry, aren’t they? I can see that. So no, you’re not looking at my dick. You’re keeping them on me and you’re telling me every single thing you’re wearing until my raging boner calms down and I can breathe again. I can breathe and fucking protect you, yeah?”
My breaths are rapid.
And my tits are so heavy in my hands that I can barely lift their weight. I can barely think at all, but for him, I do.
“It’s called a jhumka,” I tell him, referring to my earrings. “It means little bells in Hindi.”
He breathes out loud. “It’s fucking beautiful.”
It doesn’t sound like it from his tone but I understand that he’s trying to calm himself down. Which again makes me want to look down and see, even through his pants, but again, for him, I do as he says.
I tell him about my maang tikka that I’m wearing on my forehead, my big and lavish necklace around my throat. My nose ring that’s called nathini in Hindi that’s usually more extravagant than a normal nose ring with studded gems. I tell him about my henna tattoo, my anklets, my little toe ring that’s called bicchiya in Hindi and again is usually more lavish than normal toe rings.
I list every little thing I’m wearing on my body and when I’m done, I ask, “Any better?”
“What do you think?”
I look at the tight features, beads of sweat on his forehead, and go to wipe them off. But yet again, he stops me. “Don’t.” I open my mouth to protest, but he continues, “Don’t fucking touch me right now. Put your hands back on your tits.”
“But won’t that?—”
“Just do it.”
“I think I should cover them up.”
He shakes his head once. “Wouldn’t make a difference.”
“Why not?”
His jaw clenches. “They’re fucking tattooed on my brain.”
I bite my lip at his words. Then, switching gears, I ask, “Is it big?”
He waits for several beats. That I watch him count under his breath. “Do I have a big dick. Is that what you’re asking me?”
I nod.
“That’s not a good question right now.”
I know.
But I can’t stop myself.
I squeeze my tits that I’m still holding, and I begin, “Do you think…”
“Do I think what?”
“Do you think”—I squeeze my tits again—“you could fit it between my tits?”
He remains silent for a few seconds. Then his voice, somehow both threatening and tortured, asks, “Are you asking me if I can titty fuck you?”
“Uh-huh,” I say.
Although what I wanted to ask him was if he could fuck me in the pussy with it and if he did, would it hurt? But I guess I have some decency left in me to not torture him like that.
So I’m asking him the second best thing.
“Yes, Dora,” he says hatefully, “even though my dick is big enough to hurt you, I can still titty fuck you. I can still stick it between your heavy and full tits and fuck them until I do worse than coming on your tits and instead paint your pretty fucking face with my wad. And then I can titty fuck you a second time because my spunk would’ve made you all slippery and juicy, so of course my dick instead of going down will stay up. And I’m not going to take care of it by myself, am I? Not when you have a perfect pair of tits that I can ride to get rid of my hard-on. Not to mention, you also have a perfect pair of bee-stung lips that I’m going to have you part. I’m going to have you keep your mouth open and your tongue out so when I’m humping your tits like a desperate man who hasn’t come in months, when we both know that I just did, so I can mouth fuck you while I’m titty fucking you. Is that enough of an explanation?”
Wordlessly, I nod.
He does another push-up-like thingy, his veins standing taut. “And in case there’s any doubt, I can also pussy fuck you, yeah? Just because my dick is big enough that it’ll hurt even if I simply point it in your direction, I can still fuck your pink little pussy hole. I can also fuck your asshole. But that’s not what we’re doing here, are we? We’re finishing the story. We’re coming full circle and we’re doing it in a very safe and responsible way.”
Suddenly, I’m overwhelmingly sad.
I’m so freaking miserable that this is goodbye.
When we never even got to say hello first.
I know I shouldn’t say it. I know.
But still I blurt out, “If we’re coming full circle, then after I asked you to touch my tits, I also asked you to kiss me.”
I did.
And… And I think it’s okay.
It’s okay if he kisses me. Because it will be a goodbye kiss.
It will be a kiss to end things.
And then tomorrow when Shepard comes back, I can get a new start. A new beginning.
It makes sense, doesn’t it?
“No.”
“What?”
“I’m not. Going. To kiss you,” he says slowly, enunciating every word as if I won’t get it.
As if he needs me to get it.
My heart cracks and I duck my head down.
Because he rejected me again. He rejected me for the thing I shouldn’t have asked him in the first place. I should have never asked him. I don’t know what I was expecting or hoping or even thinking and I…
My thoughts break when he touches me.
When he cradles my face and tilts my neck up. When he looks down at me with shimmering eyes, with a face made of sharp features and even sharper regret.
He roves his eyes over my face for a second or two before taking his hands off the wall and stepping back. He takes my pallu with him and partially opens his fist, causing the fabric to drop down between us like a curtain of red sky and twinkling stars.
Then he raises it and drapes it over my shoulder like he’s really draping me with stars.
With celestial and heavenly bodies.
And covering me up from the world.
From his eyes too.
Before I can stop him, he turns around and leaves me in the closet, all covered up and dazed.