CH 4 || The Night Of Supreme Anguish

Aditi

******

In the course of the entire journey of one and a half hours in the flight, Vidyut was by my side. He neither accepted any work calls nor was occupied with answering emails or texting someone. To be very honest, he was leaving me in a state of a dilemma with his actions.

His actions were making me befuddled. He was never there at the important minutes or occasions of our life, but there he was holding my hand, stroking my hair in the plane. It wasn't like I had gotten ill for the first time, but I indeed was getting that treatment for the first time.

I contemplated if he was truly worried about my wellbeing, whether he was concerned about my health. He was taking care of my meds, my food all the while on the plane, feeding me things every other minute.

"Vidyut, when will you be joining the office?" His father had questioned him. I had speculated his reply beforehand but was staggered when I heard him, "Dad, after two days. Aditi is not fine, so I will be with her till she gets completely fine." All the while he was staring at me, smiling at me.

"Sounds nice." replied dad.

That flight of short duration was more blissful than how I had spent my past ten months.

Vidyut's mother was wrapped up with business magazines. Our conversation wasn't of any interest to her. Besides, she was always cold to me. It's not like she hated me but didn't like me either. Furthermore, I was heedless of the reasons for her bitter nature towards me. Even though she was the first person to agree to Vidyut's and my wedding, still, her actions would always portray another story.

Vidyut hadn't left my hand even for a bit and had interlaced the fingers of his left hand with my right. I was a tad petrified thinking it was all a splendid illusion. The Vidyut in the plane was the one I had married and I hoped for him to remain the same. I had already lost a lot of people in my life and I didn't want to lose him as well.

In our marriage of eleven months, only the first month was euphoric. After one month everything changed. It seemed I married another guy and not the one I was living with. Still, I tried everything I could, to be at his notice, but would fail every time. I even tried talking to him but things for him were the same.

I cast my mind back to the fatal evening I attempted to put forth my feelings in front of my husband. Rather than understanding me, instead of respecting my feelings, he had said, 'Aditi, seems like your view on looking at others has changed. It's you who has changed and not me.'

That wasn't the truth but he wasn't ready to believe me. When my words failed in front of him I used my silence, only for it to become impotent.

I, the one who used to give voices to the needy, once, had lost my voice long back.

Soon we had reached our destination. Unlike the last time, San Francisco appeared different to me. Nothing had changed yet something had changed. I couldn't get what it was. The place where I had fallen in love with Vidyut didn't seem the same anymore.

While I was moving out, Vidyut and his parents were ahead and me behind them. After landing, the new Vidyut was back, who would always be busy on his phone. If it would have been the old days I would have run to him and would have held his hand saying, 'You ought to take me with you, holding my hand.'

But I was done chasing. In the game of pursuing I had lost someone significant to me. I was still grieving somewhere but Vidyut, well, he had forgotten. How could he even remember when it was me who had to suffer and not him.

I wanted to shout at him, yell at him but then would stop myself saying, 'If he can't read the silence of the woman he claims to love, who used to be chirpy once, how can he understand the pain behind her shouts and yellings.'

Heading to the exit I halted at a place. Reminisces of the past ran in front of my eyes in streaks. It was the same place Vidyut had proposed to me.

Yes, Vidyut had proposed to me at the airport terminal.

He had bent down on his knee with a diamond ring in his hand. A dreamy proposal it was, just like the one I had set my heart on for a long. I was leaving for London to report on an international bike race event. It was a huge affair but I couldn't leave. I didn't go, only for him, for our love. I stayed back. The same night we had made love so passionately. Vidyut had, over and over, confessed how much he loved me.

While my eyes fixated on the spot I was proposed to, someone collided with me. I was brought back to my despairing present. The man I slammed into, seemed in a hurry. His book had fallen yet he neglected to take note.

"Excuse Me," I called him before I picked up the book. I walked to the man who hesitantly turned to me. His hair disheveled while his eyes were covered with retro-inspired round specs.

"Here, your book," I said, handing him over a blue coloured journal whose pages were yellowish.

We stared at each other for more than the required time and I felt he knew me. The way he looked at me and then tried to mask his expression by looking here and there. I for certain wouldn't have noticed if not my journalist's instincts.

"Thanks." Mumbling a small 'thanks' the guy snatched the journal as if was possessive of his things. By his facial expressions and gestures, it was evident I was a familiar face to that man and somehow even I got that feeling I had met him before. Before I could even ask him anything, he had left, in short, dashed out in a hurry. My journalist traits were kicking in inside of me to go behind him but my husband wasn't ok with me being one.

I had to stop, then and there.

******

Vidyut's parents left for their home directly from the airport. When we reached the penthouse, everything was arranged as if the staff knew quite a while we were going to come. I took a short nap after lunch and so did Vidyut.

When I woke up Vidyut was nowhere to be found. My eyes meandered over the wall clock that depicted it was eight in the night. I presumed Vidyut must be in his study, taking work calls. By taking care of me he must have meant he would be in the study room, working, while I would be lying on the bed of our bedroom like a corpse.

I got off the bed and walked to the balcony.

The cool night breeze sang its soft tune blowing my hair now and then. The breeze wasn't the same anymore, not the one I was familiar with when I had first moved in with Vidyut at his penthouse. The sky was cerulean, irradiating by the stained celestial body, the moon. 

Even with stains it was admired by many and loathed by none. It was the only thing that was the same in San Francisco, the only witness of the atrocities I had dealt with once in California.

While I let the breeze play with my hair, my hands tightly gripped the railing and my eyes closed. I was trying to breathe, serenely. I was waiting for the equanimity to embrace me.

In a matter of a few minutes, a pair of hands was swaddled around my abdomen. Vidyut's front was in contact with my back. Unlike before, I couldn't find my tranquility in his hold.

"What are you thinking about?" He whispered before kissing my temple. Keeping my hands on his I pushed myself more to him.

"The first time here..." I replied, my eyes still closed. He turned me around swiftly and hugged me before kissing my forehead. I held his torso while his fingers massaged my scalp.

"You meant our first time here?" I nodded on his chest. Vidyut pulled back from the hug and stroked my left cheek with the back of his fingers before putting a strand of loose hair behind my ear.

"Something specific about our first time?" I could see the mischief in his eyes. He was probably thinking about our first night but I was reminiscing our moments when he had hugged me endearingly, the most intimate yet comforting hug it was.

"You made me feel loved. That day I was the luckiest woman on this planet." I confessed.

"I can make you feel lucky now too," he replied.

With his words, it was easy for me to discern he was talking about our lovemaking on our wedding night while I was referring to the promises we had made to each other. He didn't seem like the Vidyut I had fallen in love with.

Staring intensely at me, Vidyut bent to my lips. His hand travelled to my waist from my back. I yearned to be molded into his arms. I craved to be loved again and again. I desired for our souls to be reunited once more.

While his lips brushed over mine I closed my eyes. My hands swathed around his neck. I let him taste me. His kiss wasn't erupting goosebumps, nor was it sending warmth to my soul. His lips and mine were just two organs doing their job.

He nibbled my lower lip the moment his hands travelled to my left breast. Squeezing my breast he explored my mouth with his tongue. I didn't feel anything, still, I moaned, with the intent of not letting him down.

"You have no idea how much you mean to me." He confessed. I smiled at him but in my mind, all I could remember were the times I needed him the most but he wasn't beside me. I used to ponder over whether he used to make love with his work.

I smiled for a brief and his next destination was my neck.

When I was being unresponsive to his neck kisses he pulled back. Placing his palm over my cheek he questioned, "What's wrong? Is everything alright?"

'Nothing is alright. How can it be? How can you not notice I am not fine?' I failed to voice my thoughts out.

Once I used to speak up for the world but I had transformed into a woman who couldn't even put her own feelings in front of her love.

"Of course." I lied before entrapping his lips. I wanted him, I didn't want to lose my husband. I didn't want us to fall apart. I had one last chance which I wanted to use to my full advantage.

The kiss proceeded, hungrily he had his hands all over me, over my silk robe that hugged me like my second skin. His hands groping my ass and pinching my nipples. While he pulled back from the kiss, he was kissing below my earlobe whispering, "I want you..."

"So do I..." I wanted him, but by all means, physically and emotionally. I coveted to feel all of him.

Vidyut picked me up and took me inside. His eyes were filled with unreadable emotion but not the same love I used to witness before.

Something was not right.

I was laid down on the bed, my clothes were taken off my body. I was all naked waiting for my husband, shivering on the ivory white silky sheet. Vidyut unclothed his upper body before he got on me, kissing my neck all over to bottom till my cleavage.

While he reached to my nipple bud he took it into his mouth, savoring it. I wasn't feeling anything, My body was responding but not my soul, as if she had slept. I wanted to scream to wake her up, nonetheless, I stayed mumchance, not wanting to scare my husband.

"Mmmm...you are so gorgeous, sweetheart." He said sucking my nipple hard. I was still gorgeous in his eyes but I didn't want to be gorgeous anymore. He bent down licking me all over, kissing my body, eating it like a famished creature.

My gaze went to the moon who was witnessing all of it. I felt proud, I wasn't alone unlike him. But then I realized I was still lonely.

Vidyut had reached down to my wet core. All the sexual mechanisms had made me wet. But my soul was still desiring.

Will it be a crime if I say I didn't want to be wet?

He smacked his lips over before his tongue was on my clit, savoring every bit of my wetness while my eyes were still on the celestial body who was mocking me.

'I am better alone rather than being with someone who can't even lessen your pain.' The moon made fun of me. I couldn't even retaliate.

When I was on the verge of my release, Vidyut unbuckled his pants and discarded them where my pile of clothes along with his shirt was lying. He took out his member before putting it inside of me. He was going on with his thrust groaning in between. I was moaning, intentionally, to accompany him.

I was faking it. 

He was inside of me, still, I was void. It's not like my body wasn't responding, but not entirely. I stared at my husband making love to me, having the best out of it but he failed to notice the emptiness I was carrying, the brimmed tears in my eyes.

He didn't even care.

"Vidyut," I called. I wanted him to stop. I had the sudden urge to stop, but he kept going in and out.

"Oh Fuck, you are so fuckable right now, dear wifey."

"Vidyut," I called him again. The second time my pitch was a bit louder. Tears now reached to the corner of my eyes at the ignorance of my husband at the most intimate moment of ours. His eyes were squinted when he was caving in and out of me.

"You like me fucking you, don't you?" His words pierced my soul.

Wasn't he making love to me?

Was that all just a fuck?

Walls of my core tightened around his member, my eyes filled with tears, completely, not with pleasure but with his negligence. The way he failed to notice my feelings was breaking me.

"Shit! I am close..." He had picked up his pace, his cock ramming deep inside of me, slapping my soul with every thrust, his balls reaching up to my cunt.

It was supposed to be romantic but I wasn't feeling any romance. For Vidyut everything was gold but for me all ashes.

"Vidyut, stop." My lips quivered. I wanted everything to stop. I couldn't understand what was happening to me but all I knew was I wasn't fine. I wasn't ok.

After he filled me in with his semen he collapsed upon my body and started licking the erected nipples, biting them in between, leaving hickeys here and there.

"I love you..." He confessed. I couldn't bring myself to reply. For the first time, I didn't reply to his love confession and like always, Vidyut didn't notice.

"I need to wash up," I said, trying to smother my cry.

"Okay. I will take a bath in the next room." He said before pulling out of me. Vidyut wore his jeans, didn't even spare a glance and walked out. He would generally take a bath after every sex while I used to remain with his scent. That night I couldn't control myself from removing his touch.

Whatever happened between us was somehow not consensual. The only difference was, I couldn't voice out a "NO".

I stood under the shower with my palms covering my mouth and I cried. I made sure that my muffled cries stayed inside. My soul deprived of love was pleading for me to release her. She was wounded enough.

After I was done I walked out. I wore a tank top and hot pants before Vidyut pulled me to bed. I was cuddled to him and his lips were busy on my skin having every ounce of taste left. My tears had dried till then.

I had become a pitiful object from a laughing stock for the moon. After Vidyut was done, he slept while I didn't.

I kept thinking about whether I was being too much with my thoughts. I was benumbed of my senses as if I was drugged. I was unmindful of what I should have felt then, at that point. Vidyut's arms around me felt like a cage. I knew that in no more than a few seconds I would suffocate. Instantly, I got up and took out a bottle of sleeping pills from the drawer of the bedside cabinet, and gulped one before laying down again. My husband was sleeping peacefully giving me a feeling that something indeed was wrong and not with Vidyut, but me.

Subsequent to the pill showing its effect I became drowsy and slept.

Late at night, my sleep broke. Even the pills couldn't do its job well. I had woken up to an empty space beside me. Roaming my eyes I tried to scan the room that consisted of me only. Hurriedly I got off the bed. I checked the washroom where my husband wasn't. Alarmed, I walked out of my room.

"Vidyut," I called, horror-stricken.

"Vidyut, are you in the study?" I questioned going towards the study room. As I was inches apart to dash inside of the room I heard someone, "Mrs.Kohli."

I turned around only to find a female staff member. I was about to mention to her that Vidyut was nowhere to be found but it wasn't needed when she said, "Sir left."

"Left? What...what do you mean by left?"

Did Vidyut leave me like others? Did he not want me anymore?

Questions and fear of being abandoned surfaced up. I could feel myself getting agitated and anxious.

"He had informed me to tell you to check your phone." Without any further ado, I ran back to the room. The new phone Vidyut had bought for me before leaving California rested upon the bedside bureau. I opened the phone only to receive a message from my husband that stated,

Hi sweetheart. I am sorry for doing this to you but I have to leave. There are some urgent matters in the branch in Seattle and I am needed there. I will come back soon, don't worry, ok. Till then take care of yourself.

Yours,

Vidyut

He was gone like every other time and I was left alone like every other time. My true companion, the loneliness was back. I plopped on the bed, my eyes stuck to the ceiling, my body feeling numb. I was in tears but there was no one to hear.

My painful cries and muffled screams all died that night. It wasn't a night of bliss but a night of supreme anguish for me. The only thread of hope was shredded that night.

******

Author

******

He stared at the hour glass kept on the table in front of him. The sand slipping just like the passing time. The time was ticking and he felt nothing but confident with passing moments.

He was a player who knew the game and every move. 

"You sure, you wanna do this?"

"Yeah, are you really up for it?"

The two boys from before who had gone looking for him before wanted to make sure. Even when they knew their friend won't back down but for the first time he was going to play a little more dirty.

He sighed and rested his head on the rear of his leathered chair. He closed his eyes and her face appeared. He had scrutinized her, imprinted her on his mind when he saw her hopelessly staring at her husband in the middle of the road.

She was his pawn after all, just a pawn.

"I was never this sure in my entire fucking life." He said before he picked up the glass filled with scotch and took sips of it, all the while picturing her, only her.