Read Online Stories Of Young Love by Abhilash Gaur - Free Book Online Page A

After all, we were lovers
meeting in complete privacy. What would she make of me if I just
ushered her in and sat down to talk as though she were an unwelcome
neighbour? Yet, wouldn’t it be better—safer for me—if we sat at
arm’s length on the bed that I hadn’t slept in? Would she remark
that and laugh? I felt weak, and unsure, faced by the imminence of
her arrival.
    I shut my eyes and
tried to think hard, see just how our meeting would pass. Would she
resist if I pulled her down on the bed wrapping my arms tightly
about her? Or would she mind if I didn’t? Would her womanly
instinct warn her to be on the guard about our relationship if I
behaved with reserve? If only she would make the first move! But
that was unlikely. I couldn’t imagine her entwining arms around my
neck to smooch and then pushing me down on the bed to ... No, that
would only complicate matters, although, to come so far and deny
both of us that which we both desired was a shame as well.
    I checked the
time, it was racing when I wanted it to pause.
    Okay, one last
time, I told myself and went over the possibilities again. Hugging
and kissing was inevitable and I was certain to commit an
indiscretion or two besides, which she would pardon indulgently.
But what after that, when she brought up the question? THE
QUESTION. How would I say no—not that I was planning or wanted to?
But come, let’s drop this pretense. If I had to say yes, I would
have said it long ago. I simply wasn’t going to marry at 25. Now I
saw it clearly: I did not want to get married. And then, I worked
the meeting backwards from that answer and realized that it would
be best to make her wait in the lobby. Better still, I could check
out early and go wait for her, so that there would be no
awkwardness about the room awaiting us upstairs.
    And so, I washed
quickly, brushed my clothes straight and came down to check
out.
    ***
    The lobby was
two steps lower than the rest of the hotel reception and along its
walls were arranged blue velvet-upholstered sofas. Sunlight
streamed in through the fixed glass windows and the light outside
was already whitish rather than yellow. It was going to be a very
hot journey back home. I picked a sofa directly under an AC vent
that also gave me a clear view of the entrance and settled down to
wait for her. Unusually for a hotel, the lobby did not have a TV.
There was a screen, of course, but it ran a news ticker instead of
video, and I liked it because it was less distracting.
    It wasn’t a big
news day and all the breaks were about such and such minister or
business leader saying something or the other. My eyes followed the
rolling lines but my mind kept going over what could have been. Now
that I had handed over my keys and checked out, and closed all
possibilities, I felt a yearning for her. For the first time, I
found myself thinking of the body in which my idol resided. I had
known a few before, but they were all younger, shapelier and more
supple than hers. I baulked at the thought that the soft and plump
form I had worshipped for two years was probably sagging and
shapeless when not bound up in denim and elastic straps. I peeled
off the layers and saw folds of flesh, a round belly, loose breasts
that weren’t the orbs of poetry but pads, thick arms that spread
under their own weight on the bed, a dimpled backside, a waist that
didn’t narrow. I hadn’t ever tried holding it between my hands. I
shuddered to think what it would turn into in a few more years, and
then I looked around to make sure nobody was watching me. Thinking
about sex, rather imagining sex, can make a person look very
stupid. I clenched my jaw and forced myself to read the news more
carefully. Then, catching my chin in a cupped palm I returned to
bed, with her.
    I tried to start
from her toes, because they showed fair and shapely through her
sandals, and her laughter rang in my mind. Long ago, I had joked to
her that I formed my first opinion of women from their feet