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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  By the same author

  How About a Sin Tonight?

  Published by Random House India in 2013

  Copyright © Novoneel Chakraborty 2013

  Random House Publishers India Private Limited

  Windsor IT Park, 7th Floor, Tower-B

  A-1, Sector-125, Noida-201301, UP

  Random House Group Limited

  20 Vauxhall Bridge Road

  London SW1V 2SA

  United Kingdom

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  E-ISBN 9788184004892

  For

  my Iron Lady.

  I love you didi

  ‘If you are accustomed to see only black and white,

  then you’ll never see me.’

  Later in the story

  SHARADA HEIGHTS

  NEAR TANK NO. 4

  SALT LAKE, KOLKATA

  ‘Now tell me, what were you saying?’ asked the boy rapidly climbing the stairs with nervous energy. His attention towards the girl, who was ardently trying to catch up with him from behind, was undisturbed though. They were climbing the stairs of Sharada Heights; a five storey apartment. By the time they reached the third floor, both of them were soaking wet.

  ‘Just like a river has different names as it traverses different territories,’ the girl said climbing the stairs. The boy was ahead of her but she was breathing harder than him. ‘Our love too shall have different names as our life traverses different births. But the essence, the nature, the taste of love shall remain the same,’ she continued.

  They continued to climb the stairs.

  It was around midnight. No moon, no stars. Only black clouds. There was heavy rain, though, with an interlude of lightening and thunder. There was no one on the streets. Everyone everywhere seemed to be fast asleep. And just when everything seemed like a prelude to an impending doom, the old door of the terrace of Sharada Heights opened with a creaking sound. The sound lingered in the air for some time.

  The girl, dressed in a blue top and cropped trousers, and the boy, wearing a white T-shirt tucked beneath a pair of black jeans, peeped out from the half-open door. The sound of heavy rain hit their ears. They slowly stepped out on the wet terrace.

  The moment they stepped out in the open, the rhythmic beating of the raindrops on the floor muted all other sounds. The sky seemed to relentlessly kiss the earth—just the way lovers kiss when they meet each other after a long time or for the last time. Does the sky and earth, the girl wondered, gossip about spring, summer, and winter through raindrops?

  The girl and the boy, grasping each other’s hands more firmly as the rains drenched them, stood still. For the world, perhaps, it would have been just another abrupt shower that year, but for them it was the first rain of confession in eras that was drenching them. There are certain relationships which don’t necessarily start when two people meet. Even their first meeting has the vibe of an unexplained continuation. The girl and the boy were in one such relationship even from the time they were not in a relationship.

  Standing under the rain, together, they finally understood how much they loved each other. It wasn’t that they didn’t realize it before, but the journey from a ‘gut feeling’ to a ‘concrete knowing’ happened at that instant. They kept looking into each other’s eyes. The rain by then had polished off their appearance, transforming them from stones into glistening diamonds that emanated an alluring desire for the other. Desire gives love its wings—they understood.

  The boy took her to the edge of the terrace. He stood up on the cemented barricade that fenced the terrace, and then pulled up the girl beside him. She was visibly scared. The boy feigned his fear better. They were standing on the edge facing each other. The girl didn’t let go of his hand even for a second. They stood so close to each other that they could feel their breaths on each other’s skin. Their breaths, by caressing their skin, soon gave birth to a feeling in them whose wail drew their heart’s attention. The latter asked the feeling what it was seeking. A kiss; the feeling told the heart. The latter was instantly alert because a kiss was the heart’s only way to share its deepest secret with the soul. Should the kiss happen, the heart will have to bare open all its secrets, in all its nudity.

  The boy brought his hand to the girl’s inquisitive face and tucked a strand of her wet hair behind her ear. He then cupped her face gently with both his hands. For her, it was like a giant dream within the tiny capsule of reality. For him, it was a certain reality inside an uncertain drop of a dream.

  A few raindrops trickled down her forehead. The boy interrupted one raindrop with the tip of his tongue. When a promise and a prayer come together, a commitment is created. She was the promise, he was the prayer, and the unprecedented feeling their kiss triggered within them was the commitment.

  Why this commitment? her mind asked her heart. This commitment is an assurance, her heart answered the mind.

  ‘That I’ll choose him in whatever form, and whenever, he presents himself in front of me. It’s not because our choice will claim we are the best for each other. But just like a student passing out from a school knows the basic of everything, we would be the basic of each other.’

  The boy sucked hard on her lips. The girl felt nothing for some time after which she opened her eyes to realize her deepest core had evolved. An irreversible ritual had taken place in her heart. With this new self, now, she sucked his lips. Did his heart undergo a similar ritual too? she wondered. Soon the two tongues prattled amidst the torrential rainfall.

  The fear the girl had felt after climbing up the cemented barricade had now been conquered. Trust, after all, rinses a heart of almost every fear, eventually. Hope takes care of whatever residual.

  Their lips parted. Nothing will be able to wash his imprints off her now, she knew. As their eyes met again, she wondered whether she really existed or had she been a mere fragment of his imagination all these years? Could it be that she was leading a life of death till now? And when he happened to her, life happened?

  The boy, in an indescribable trance, sat down by the cemented barricade. He pulled the girl’s hand as an invitation to come and sit close to him—and she did. The outside was chaotic, the inside calm. In that calmness she could hear her heartbeats loud and clear. The beats seemed to have graduated from mere sounds to a language through which she was translating what the boy had penned on her heart with the ink of love.

  A minute passed by. They kept exchanging furtive glances gravid with romance. As the hypnotizing moment was busy making a space within their hearts which both would visit every time a separation beckoned, the boy leaned sideways and kissed her on the cheek. She gave him a half-nervous, half-shy smile. She leaned a little more towards him and they kissed again. Only this time the kiss made them slowly swing between life and death, love and despair, destiny and coincidence, choice and consequence, decadence and redemption, forgiveness
and revenge, light and darkness, sexuality and spirituality, blame and guilt, consciousness and subconsciousness, instinct and experience, fame and oblivion, future and…

  The kiss broke. They sat by the edge of the terrace for some more time; hand in hand. Finally, they both stood up.

  ‘I had to tell you this…’ said the boy as they stood facing the other. ‘I love you because that’s my best bet to mean something to you. My love for you is only a means to an end. And the end is I want to mean something to you.’

  The girl couldn’t hold back her tears. Crying is the heart’s way of embracing pain. And love.

  ‘I don’t know how long this separation of death will be, but until life gives us a chance to meet again, my soul shall be burning,’ she said with tears rolling down her cheeks. In the rain, however, the tears lost their distinction.

  The boy’s body was shaking from an inner catharsis.

  ‘Just promise me one thing,’ the girl said, locking her fingers with the boy’s.

  ‘What?’ The boy held her hand tight.

  ‘Even if death touches us, you shall always remember me as yours?’

  The boy nodded.

  It was time to carry out their plan.

  Chapter 1

  Six months back

  Amiddle-aged man is pacing about restlessly in a sophisticated lobby. He is semi-bald, lean, almost to the level of being skinny, wearing black cotton trousers, a plain white half-sleeved shirt, and shining brown Khadim’s sandals. He casts an occasional glance at his wrist watch. 7.45 pm. He has been waiting in the foyer for the last half an hour, along with a few others perched at the edge of their seats, nervously waiting for the receptionist to announce their names.

  The man adjusts his square-shaped spectacles a little and stands up. He soon locates what he is looking for; a water cooler at the end of the hallway. He ambles towards it, takes out a paper glass from a stack beside the cooler, and pours himself some cold water. He quaffs the water in one go and then pours himself another glass. The moment he gulps it, his eyes fall on a woman right ahead in the foyer where he was sitting. The man particularly notices her because she has raised her hand a little to draw his attention. Also, she is his wife.

  She has come dressed in a gorgeous chiffon sari with a matching blouse and sandals. Unlike the other ladies present around her, she has applied oodles of makeup on her face. At her age, her overall dressing looks loud and bizarre. Even though the air-conditioner in the room is on full blast, the woman keeps pretending to wipe non-existent sweat drops from her forehead and cheeks with her handkerchief. Her hair is jet black, almost like she is wearing a wig.

  As the man by the water cooler fills a glass of water for his wife, an intercom buzzes loudly, breaking the otherwise brittle silence to pieces. The receptionist, a young female sitting behind a semi-circular table at one end of the entrance, picks up the receiver on the second ring.

  ‘Yes ma’am,’ she says. After a few seconds, she calls out to the man by the water cooler, ‘Mr Chatterjee, please go in. You’re next.’

  Atul Chatterjee quickly empties his glass in the cooler’s sink and joins his wife, Sonakshi. The urgency in their demeanour alarms the onlookers.

  In his head, Atul had formed a picture of the woman they are about to meet—middle aged, well past her menopause, and a strict feminist. There was no particular reason why Atul had that image of the woman. But the person waiting for them shatters his perception completely. This is a girl, and not a woman to begin with. She is wearing a crisp business suit, her hair is neatly done up with a couple of loose strands falling on either side of her face. She is sitting straight with her hands clasped together on the large woooden table behind which she is sitting—a very corporate pose. Her black carbon square specs suit her oval face well.

  ‘Good evening ma’am. May we please come in?’ Atul says hoping he has subdued his male ego enough in his voice. Rarely before has Atul ever needed anyone’s permission for anything. But this, of course, is different.

  ‘Yes please Mr…’ The girl glances at her iPad once, kept beside her, and says, ‘Atul Chatterjee.’

  The couple come in with a pseudo-smartness about them and take seats opposite the girl. Sonakshi gives the girl a plastic smile and says, ‘Mr Dasgupta recommended you to us.’

  ‘Dasgupta?’ There is a slight twitch in the girl’s eyebrow as if she is trying to recollect.

  ‘Bibhash Dasgupta…’

  ‘Oh yes, I remember.’

  Atul and Sonakshi share an assuring glance presuming that if the girl has finally recollected who Bibhash is, their own importance in her eyes would have escalated.

  ‘It’s about my son,’ says Sonakshi uneasily.

  ‘Where is he?’ The girl—realizing her mobile phone is vibrating—turns it upside down. The vibration ceases. Sonakshi makes a mental note of the fact that the girl didn’t take the call. She herself wouldn’t have appreciated any disturbance at this point of time.

  ‘If you want to talk about your son, you’ll have to bring him here,’ the girl says.

  ‘That’s the problem. We can’t bring him here,’ Atul says.

  ‘Then I’m afraid I won’t be able to help you.’

  Atul and Sonakshi exchange a nervous look.

  ‘I’m ready to give you as much money as you want.’ Atul’s helplessness is quite transparent by now.

  ‘It’s not about the money,’ the girl says with an unflinching look towards Atul. Only her jaw moves as she speaks, like she is a programmed robot.

  ‘Please do something,’ pleads Sonakshi. The helplessness has possessed Sonakshi equally. ‘We have come here with a lot of hope.’

  The girl keeps staring at the woman as if she is trying to judge whether the mother’s concern behind the painted face is real or not.

  ‘What’s your son’s name?’ she asks.

  ‘Neel,’ Atul blurts out.

  A slight frown appears on the girl’s face. Her jaws lock themselves and in the next instance releases. Her eyes swiftly studies Atul and Sonakshi sitting in front of her. Something about their appearance tells her that she isn’t seeing them for the first time. She unfolds her hands, slowly takes off her specs, and says, ‘Do you have any photograph of your son?’

  Atul quickly brings out his mobile phone and hands it over to the girl. His phone has the photograph of his son on the home screen.

  The girl stares at the photograph. A touch longer than necessary. She gives the phone back to Atul.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she says and goes to the washroom, her heart pounding hard.

  Inside the washroom, she stands by the washbasin for some time pondering over something. She looks up at her reflection. It looks surprisingly happier than what she is feeling from within.

  The girl slowly comes out of her business suit. She unbuttons her white formal shirt and takes it out too. Next she unhooks her bra. She turns around and tries to see her back in the mirror atop the washbasin. In the reflection she can see several burn marks. She caresses the few marks near her shoulder and breaks into a sadistic laughter.

  ‘You had your chance, Neel Chatterjee. And you fucked me good. Now it’s my turn. I’ll fuck you bad.’ The girl tells her reflection.

  Chapter 2

  ROOM NO. 332

  HOTEL SAVOY RAJ

  MG ROAD, JAIPUR

  Neel Chatterjee is climbing up the stairs to the third floor of the hotel. He does so a little too quickly than his usual speed, hence he ends up gasping for breath. Blame his speed on the message he received a minute back on his mobile phone from the girl who, he knows, is waiting inside room 332 for him. The message read: I’m wet. And before that he had seen her slip off her bra from her shoulder, standing by the roadside-view window in her room, when he was entering the hotel gate.

  Now, standing in front of room 332’s half ajar door, Neel waits to bring his breathing back to normal first; two deep breaths and he feels better. Next he presses his erect penis between his legs. He doesn’t wa
nt to make things too obvious for the girl inside the room. He takes one final breath and pushes the door open.

  As the door slowly opens up, light peeps in the room from the tubelight in the corridor outside in the otherwise dark room. And somewhere from the darkness he hears her say, ‘What’s the most important thing in your life Neel?’

  As he takes some time to speak, Neel locks the door behind him. The room is completely dark now.

  The girl throws a packet of condoms at Neel.

  ‘We’ll need this in sometime, not immediately.’

  Neel wishes he knew what ‘this’ was that the girl threw at him.

  ‘It’s a pack of condoms.’ The girl’s voice clarifies from the darkness as if she is reading his mind.

  ‘Answer me now,’ she adds. Her voice is strict yet soft.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Neel says staring at the darkness ahead, ‘Probably to soon become a published author?’

  The girl switches on the bedside light. The room is now filled with a soft erotic yellowish tinge. She smiles at him. The room has one television, one single bed, two lamps, a centre table, a telephone, a wardrobe, and a mirror. As Neel looks at the girl, he notices that her firm erect breasts are rising and falling, in a sensual rhythm, with her slow but deep breaths. He can tell both her smile and her breasts are blatantly attention-seeking. In fact everything about the girl seems like black magic. He feels an insane pull towards her, just like an unscrupulous man would feel for a woman apt for his most primitive need.

  The girl has a mysterious aura about her. When she looks at him with a certain quietude, Neel feels like he is standing alone in front of a vast ocean which can throw up gigantic waves any moment to swallow him. And when she talks to him, it’s a sandstorm; he doesn’t know what to focus on—her moving lips, her blinking eyes, or her animatedly moving hands. For the time being, Neel decides to focus only on her smile.

  ‘Strip. And be quick,’ the girl says and switches off the light.