55 -why not!

Twirling, twisting, tapping, laughing, eyes shining we danced.

The music played on. Or not.

Breathless, sweaty bodies held in the infinite embrace of a few minutes.

The dark and sweet smell of two bodies and the night.

I don’t want to remember it. Or forget.

Of course he wasn’t the marrying kind. They never are.

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I know she’s watching. When I add the wrong spices to the right curry. When making love. When I suck in the flabby stomach.

She drives me crazy with my need to be perfect for him.

An eternal punishment. For having stolen him. Not because I loved him more than she. I’d hated her more…

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I listen. Not too keenly. It would offend him, had I.

He talks about her. Then another. And so on.

It’s when he doesn’t talk about other women that I worry.

His little fallacies keep alive. Our marriage. My surrealist superiority. My sanity.

I hope he doesn’t notice that I don’t talk of him anymore.

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"I’ll only marry someone who can drive a car and very well at that.”, he said lazily stretching himself, “And someone who can cook exceptionally”

Unthinking words thrown carelessly.

She looked at the words scornfully. Conditional love never met with her approval.

She joined driving classes secretly the next day. Cooking classes that same afternoon.

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They lost their way everyday. At least ever since she started accepting a ride from him.

“He wants to spend more time with me and hence the delightfully foolish excuse”, shyly looking at him she hugged her secret joyfully.

“These damned Chennai roads. And all the cursed buildings look alike. Damn!”, he swore to himself.

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1706 miles from San Antonio to Delaware.

"Come and see me", I say.

A pregnant pause. Uncomfortable and heavy.

I laugh. It then becomes a sophisticated joke, which even I don't understand.

But I mean every word I say.

"Of course I will", he says.

We laugh.

He doesn't mean a single word he says.

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The vase is full of myriad sprays.

Very like the men in my life. Good men, men whom I cared. None whom I loved.

I slide off the bed. Practiced ease.

It was good though. Like many times before.

No note left that would but say, “I wouldn’t recognize you if I saw you again”

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Sleep was a million miles away. The television, a remote away. Entertainment, a furtive window across.

Standing by the shadows, she watches him.

She blushes when she sees him the next day.

He smiles politely at his gray spinster of a neighbor who plays the television loudly when he makes love to same named women.