Chapter 39 #2
“Hmm,” Atharva smiled, looking at his son reach for a piece of jaggery. He held it like a stone in his palm. Eyed it skeptically. Then brought it to his mouth and licked it. Yathaarth’s eyes widened. Iram gasped.
“Yes, it’s sweet, you like sweet, no, Dilbaro?” She cooed. “What is it? Gud.”
“Guood,” he pronounced right on his first attempt and tried to stuff the whole piece into his mouth.
They both lunged and held it off, laughing.
Their son looked miffed, ready to cry as Iram pried it from his stubborn fist, brought it to her mouth and snapped it into a smaller piece with her teeth.
Pinching it between her fingers, she popped it into his mouth. The crying face was gone.
“Gud, Dilbaro, ask Mama for gud,” Atharva combed his hair back.
“Guood zuv zuv!”
“Yes, gud, here it comes!” Iram held a piece of roti out in front of him, pinched some jaggery onto it, folded it and held it out to his mouth. He quickly gobbled it up.
“You should have Shiva make kesari rob for him.”
“Jaggery and saffron?”
“My Dadi used to make it, then roll it into tiny bullet-sized balls and hand them to me as sweets.”
“It’s a good idea. Winter is coming, saffron and jaggery both are good for the cold…”
Atharva sat back and observed, enjoying every single moment of his son’s breakfast time.
He did not know a time as CM when he had this privilege.
Maybe Iram was right. If he treated this time as an exile, it would eat him alive.
But if he saw this as his time with his family, it would reward him with invaluable memories.
And also build his son’s character the way his own was built with his parents’ and grandparents’ quality time.
“I thought you had a meeting at the HDP office in Chotta Shimla today…”
“I just had that one meeting. I postponed it to 11. That way I can go after breakfast and return before lunch.”
Iram glanced up from helping Yathaarth. Her eyes were surprised but happy.
“Oh don’t be so smug now,” he drawled.
“I didn’t say anything.”
He smirked — “Are you free after his breakfast, myani zuv?”
“Why do you ask?”
“I need to talk to you about something.”
She frowned.
“Drop him down to Shiva and come back up.”
She just shook her head, reiterating the words gud and roti to their son, who did not care about the words as long as he got the things into his mouth.
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“I dropped him to play with coriander and be Shiva’s non-helping-helper,” Iram came blabbering into the observatory and he grabbed her wrist, shutting the door closed.
Her mouth dropped open but he pressed the door with his back and pulled her to his chest, capturing that wide-open mouth and her loud protest.
“Ath… ummm!” He clasped his hands behind her. Her arms got trapped between them. He tightened his hold, pushing his tongue into her mouth. “Umm…”
That wasn’t a sound of protest now. Atharva bent his head, making her crane back as he used his tongue to reach parts of her he hadn’t touched in long days, weeks, maybe months.
Iram met him halfway, wriggling her hands free to snake them up his shoulders, around his neck, clasping there until her fingers were buried in his hair and pushing his head deeper.
He went relentlessly then, using his mouth to do everything, all at once.
“Oh,” she gasped back. Big brown eyes, wide and amazed, stared up at him. He walked her back into the room, turning the key in the lock behind him. Her eyes went there — “Breakfast, Atharva…”
“Arth ate.”
“I meant you.”
He leaned down and caught her lower lip. Nibbled. Silent laughter reverberated from inside her.
“You wanted to talk to me about something,” she demanded with mock indignation. He nipped her chin. “Hmm.”
“Hmm, what, Janab?”
“Hmm, I wanted to talk to you about something,” he reached for her pheran. She froze, glancing around them.
“We are two floors up, between dense deciduous trees with no other house in sight.” He loosened her hold on her thick pheran. “Short of the sun and the birds finding out how amazing you look when you come, there is no danger here.”
Her mouth fell into that same crook where his son had been some time ago. And she scraped her teeth there, knowing what got him going. Atharva groaned, getting rid of everything between them. She began to pull him down to the mattress.
“Too small,” he lifted her up, wrapping her legs around his waist and pushing until they were pasted on a glass wall.
He had done his due diligence and checked if it was double-glazed.
The thing was thicker than a wall and Atharva only had to hold her up.
He did that with pleasure, feeling her warm up over him even when she gasped.
“Cold glass?” He kissed her neck, running his fingers through her hair. “I’m ordering a full mattress and heater for this room, plus a divan big enough to house us both.”
“It’s a waste…” she reached down for him, leaving her weight to him, knowing he would hold her up.
Atharva shouldn’t have felt powerful in that one move; it wasn’t even a surprising move.
But he felt like the king of the world. Then she stroked him.
Hard. And he felt like a slave, slobbering at her altar.
“We need condoms.”
“Here,” he stretched an arm out to the high console drawer under the gramophone and brought a foil up between them. Her eyes widened — “You store it there?”
“Just did when you went down,” he tore it open between his teeth and held it out to her. She grabbed it and rolled it on.
“You haven’t been working out but the muscles seem to work just fine, Janab,” she patted his softening biceps when he impaled her. Her whole body fell over him and he held it tight, feeling the snug wrap of her around him. She wasn’t as ready as he had imagined. He began to pull out.
“No!” She circled her hips. “Do this.”
He did. And his way started to ease in. Atharva pulled back, cocked his head to look into her lowered eyes and thrust back in, this time throbbing. It had been so long.
“I don’t think I can last, myani zuv,” his thrusts were already turning maddening.
“Don’t wait, it’s ok, I want it,” she held the back of his head and pulled his face into her breasts.
He laved that valley, kissing, suckling, biting his way to the two soft globes.
Their lower bodies were frantic. His was, at least, as he went wild.
Animalistic. And with a roar silenced between her breaths he came. She didn’t.
And instead of letting her down, Atharva hitched her higher to a loud gasp and without slipping out, began to thrum her with his fingers. Her eyes rolled back. He pushed deeper, adding to the pressure, and used knuckles where she least expected.
“Noooo!” She collapsed over him yet again, coming around him with just as wild an abandon.
Her breathing was heavy, her mouth open on his shoulder, her body slick over his. Atharva finally took her and settled on the single armchair. Their heads were thrown back and the sun and the leaves and the sky and the birds danced for them. A new morning.
He checked, and her mouth was still open. Atharva smiled, gently pushing it shut. She kept panting, looking so satisfied that it made him feel an extra five feet tall.
“You liar, you did not want to talk to me about anything,” she panted, eyes on the mild early morning sky above.
“I did.”
“About what?”
“About how to make this into our secret getaway space?”
Her eyes narrowed. “This is your son’s meal place. And his fun music space.”
“He is allowed here for all of those,” Atharva buried his face into her hair, smelling the saffron now mellowed in sweat. “But his Baba needs to have some fun here too.”
Iram’s body rattled. They laughed. Together. Ten more feet added. His own stature again looked high enough to himself.
“How much did you run today, Janab?”
“I didn’t run much but you were right.”
“I am right about a lot of things.”
“You sound like Begumjaan.”
That got her face to snap right and come to him — “Really?” She grinned.
“You seem to be on a one-way ticket to becoming like her.”
“The way you and Arth eat your weight in sugar, I think I am going to have to become a clone of her — the sugar police of our family.”
“You fed him jaggery just now and you have sneakily replaced a lot of my good stuff with jaggery too. I didn’t care to voice it out lately, doesn’t mean I didn’t notice.”
Her teeth sank into her lower lip. He caught it and pulled that plump flesh out — “Moving my body again in the morning has given me a whole new life.”
“I can see,” she moved her bum over his lap and he grunted. Atharva clamped her thigh in place, pushing his nose into her shoulder. — “I am serious.”
Her grin widened — “See! That’s exactly what I did when I was recovering. All those walks paid off.”
His head pushed back. “It’s day one but I haven’t felt this in-control in a long time.”
Iram wound her arms around him, moving over his lap until she had turned and straddled her legs on either side of him. He ran his hands up her milky thighs, rubbing the ripple of creamy stretch marks as she combed her fingers through his temples.
“It won’t be one way — this recovery, Atharva.”
“I know. I feel like I have been here before.”
“When?”
“When I was leaving SFF. I did not identify it then and just climbed mountains. And magically, meeting people, doing things for them, building homes, repairing shelters, being resourceful and helpful cured me. I remember it now.”
“Purpose,” Iram mouthed.
“Purpose. Maybe it won’t be as big again, but it will be good. Whatever it is.”
She held his face and ran her thumbs under his eyes again. That place was alive again. Her nose came to his and she nuzzled it.
“You are going to be ok.”
“Yes.”
“Say it.”
He had been slumbering these past months. Now he was wide awake and ready to touch the sky when asked to only reach for the tree.
“I’ll do you one better,” he pulled her flush against him, the V of her lap over his. “I am going to get through this.”