‘I felt like pouring out my pain to you,’ she said, ‘Go have your bath.’
‘I would rather wait for Sathyam,’ he said as he came out of the bathroom, finding her ready with dinner and all.
‘Why, do you want us to starve till he returns from his four-day tour or what?’ she said smiling. ‘Think of it, what a coincidence that he was away when you first came with Sandhya!’
But then, how were she to know about Sathyam’s peccadilloes at Peddapuram on that supposedly official trip. Besides, at the threshold of the golden moment of her life, even if she were aware of it then, maybe, she couldn’t have cared less.
‘Oh, I see,’ he said tentatively. ‘I thought I could stay here for a couple of days.’
‘Why,’ she said smilingly, ‘do you think I would show you the door after dinner?’
‘I didn’t mean it that way,’ he said a little confounded.
‘But I mean to tell you everything,’ she said getting up from the dining chair. ‘Let me have my bath before that.’
‘Probably, it’s all over between us bar sighing,’ he thought pensively, sinking into a dining chair. ‘Hasn’t she said that my letter would have made so much difference to her? Oh, does that not imply that I have lost out to Prasad? Is it any consolation that I was her first choice? What if her current concern the courtesy of her past feelings? Or is her friendliness owing to my being Sandhya’s husband? What sense does the relocation to Hyderabad make for me? Won’t I feel miserable seeing her adoring someone else? What sort of a reward it would be for my unrequited love for her if Prasad were to turn up now. Won’t that embarrass us all, and what’s worse, my presence might lead to a misunderstanding between them. I better pack up after dinner for it’s not fair to spoil her party with her paramour. How stupid I am to lose a woman like her when she could have been mine for the asking!’
‘Isn’t it Godsend,’ thought Roopa in relief, making use of the soap he had used, even as she recalled the bath of fetish she had had with his soap during his first visit to her place. ‘Have I not been waiting for this day all my life? Oh, finally my destiny seems to have kept its date with him! I’ll make him mine even if it comes to raping him, won’t I? How we could indulge in lovemaking day and night for three days at a stretch. Well, without a care in the world. How fortuitous that he came at a time when Prasad too went on a foreign jaunt! Maybe, I can’t expect him to take the initiative, could I? It’s clear that his passion for me is kicking and alive though shrouded in hesitancy. If only I ignite his urge, won’t he engulf me with his ardor?’