‘Roopa,’ he repeated
‘Hahn.’
‘We’ll be leaving tomorrow,’ he said with a feeling of disappointment, which she noticed in the tenor of his tone.
‘I know,’ she said, as her hapless mind filtered the true feelings of her heart that read, ‘I know, but how I wish you would take me too.’
He kept quiet, staring at her in disappointment.
‘You could have stayed for a day or more,’ he felt she could have said without compromising herself. ‘Then I would have seized the chance to open my heart to her. And couldn’t she have poured out her heart in reciprocity? It’s apparent that she’s attracted to me, there is no mistaking that. Doesn’t her heavy manner belie the burden of her love even?’ The thought that she loved him pleased him even more for her presence.
Finding him truant, she realized that she goofed up her chance, and thought, ‘Any commonplace comment could have kept the dialogue alive, and who knows, what it would have unraveled. Why can’t he realize that it’s but a mere slip of the tongue, symbolizing the gulf between my feelings and expression?’
As though blaming him didn’t appeal to her, Roopa tried to rationalize the lack of forthrightness on his part, ‘After all, in his position, he can’t but be tentative, for the fear of offending my sensitivity.’ However, even as their lips were sealed in apprehension, their eyes continued their conversation without any inhibition.
Meanwhile Sandhya felt refreshed while freshening herself in her bath. ‘Roopa likes my man,’ she thought excitedly. ‘But then, won’t women find him fascinating if they happen to get acquainted with him? That way, he too turned fond of her. Why, can any man ever ignore her either? Won’t it be nice if only we three could form a friendly triangle? Oh, how lucky I am to have a friend like her and a man like him!’
However, as Sandhya came out in excitement, she found them both immersed in their own thoughts.
‘Being sworn friends,’ Sandhya said in jest, ‘why are you sitting like strangers?’
‘Being a gentleman,’ said Roopa smiling, as she left for her bath, ‘your hubby seems to believe in ladies being first.’
While Sandhya laughed at the remark, Raja Rao was pleased with her innuendo.
As she entered the bathroom, the very thought that he had his bath there earlier thrilled Roopa’s sensuality. As she undressed herself, she recalled his searching looks, which made her imagine herself in his presence, and his thought in her nudity induced pulsations in her frame, increasing her craving for his possession. Even as she showered herself leisurely, she sighed for him longingly, and while reaching for her soap, seeing theirs, she was drawn to it impulsively. Well, in her bath of fantasy that she had had, their soap became a fetish that freshened as well as excited her in equal measure.