‘Won’t it be sexy possessing her now when her figure is at its curvy best,’ it crossed him as they turned the corner to reach home. ‘Moreover, going by her hungry looks, she seems to be inclined towards me. What if I go to her on the sly after Sandhya falls asleep? Surely, she wouldn’t be pushing me out were she to fail to invite me into her arms. But won’t that be the cue for me to find ways and means to press ahead for her heart and soul encased in her sexy frame? Surely, that would begin a life long affair with her, won’t it?
‘But all that would have made sense if I were put up here,’ he thought dejectedly. ‘In a one-night stand, I might barely taste her flavor to savor which I would need the possession of a lifetime. Maybe the romance of a night might meet the demands of our urge but only the life long union could fulfill our craving souls. On the other hand, if I were to seduce her now into submission that might lead her astray in the end. Having had a fling with me, won’t she, in my absence, succumb to the advances of an ogler? Should that happen, instead of giving her the solace of love, I would be the cause of her depravity.’
As he shuddered to imagine her fall, he resolved, ‘It is better that we moved in here before I begin wooing her.’
When they reached home, in that wet setting, Roopa goaded Sandhya to go in for a shower.
‘Have you seen Pakeezah?’ Roopa asked him, once Sandhya was gone.
‘I liked it,’ he said sensing some inference from that love story, ‘What about you?’
‘I found the movie moving and the songs memorable,’ she said, giving an impression that she left something unsaid.
‘Especially that one, ‘yuhi koyi,’ he said, as though he understood what was unsaid, ‘about a chancy meeting and thereafter.’
‘Do you think,’ she began, as though to convey more than she enquired, ‘marriages are made in heaven?’
‘Maybe,’ he said, as if he was clarifying their position, ‘but why on earth shouldn’t one fall in love?’
‘I agree,’ she said after a pause, during which she conveyed her approval with her gaze.
When Sandhya came out from bath, Roopa tried to goad him into the bathroom, but as he insisted that he would be the last to go, she went in there disappointed. However, after her bath-of-dreams, about to clear the clothesline, she changed her mind and left her dirty linen behind. ‘Surely, he would scan my lingerie,’ she pondered romantically over the possibility. ‘That could be the reason why he insisted that I go in before him. Oh, what a clever chap. As he would pick up my brassiere to note the size, won’t he smell it as well for my body odor?’