‘That means,’ he said smilingly, ‘she will have a double protection against my pampering.’
‘Before I forget,’ she said excitedly, ‘especially since these days, everyone complains that I’ve become very forgetful.’
‘Lost in love!’ he said, interrupting her.
‘Don’t you know that?’ she said. ‘I’ve paid the advance for your office as well as her Sweet Home, both in Himayatnagar. You can occupy them any time next month.’
‘So, you’ve got the sets ready,’ he said pinching her crotch, ‘to begin the shoot.’
Shortly thereafter, the TTE had come and gone, leaving them on their own. Having bolted the door, Raja Rao opened his suitcase, and pulled out an ‘Intimate’.
‘When you’re around,’ she said, smelling it, ‘why do I need this?’
‘Oh, nothing is better scented than your body,’ he said, rubbing his nose all over her. ‘It’s just to make it a witness to our intimacy.’
‘You’re such a pet,’ she said, running her fingers through his hair.
‘I read your letter a hundred times,’ he said as he pulled it from his pocket, ‘for its romantic quality.’
‘Thanks for your compliment,’ she sank into him coyly, ‘for my maiden effort.’
‘Why don’t you read it for me?’ he gave her the letter.
‘Why do you want to embarrass me?’ she said gazing at it lovingly.
‘Why not try,’ he coaxed her. ‘Having seen your love in the print of your hand, now I want to savor it in the tenor of your tone.’
She smiled with satisfaction, but read with inhibition.
“Raja dear,
Believe me, for more than an hour now, I’ve been toying with my pen to picture the feelings of my heart so that you could feel them in my missive. Well, had you been around, by now we would have made love twice over. Is there any human expression other than lovemaking that is so full in its intent and content!
I wonder why I feel so diffident to find words to express that by which I breathe my life, is it not our love that helps me live. Perhaps, a woman prefers to preserve her love in the recess of her heart, as if its exposure, even to her lover, deprives it of its pristine purity. You know, I didn’t have any inhibitions turning nude that night, before your very eyes, that too on my own. So, isn’t it strange that I should struggle now to bare my heart, in spite of your command! It looks like the emotions of my love are closer to my heart than the feelings of my frame, if not, how could have I steered clear of all those temptations for the appointment with our fulfillment? Oh what a destiny!