Wild Fire - A Short Story

I

South Asian Games Federation (SAF) village, built to accommodate the athletes participating in the South Asian Games, now houses the most powerful bureaucrats of the city. None becomes powerful without garnering few-to-many enemies along the line. So for the sake of guarding them, there’s always a police patrol in and around the area. At the entrance of the campus, a small police booth was setup, where there’ll be always a police man during the time when those powerful folks pass the gates. Now just near that booth, stood Preethi, waiting for a car sent by her friend to pick her.

She gazed at the busy 100 feet road, taking in the busy traffic that could culminate into pure chaos and pandemonium in a while. It was 8:50 AM. On a different day, she would've been staring at the Oracle E-Business Suite Application, trying to decipher why the Automatic Receipts Generation Program failed for a specific invoice for the umpteenth time. But this was a unique day. When she thought about it, she felt the butterflies flying all around her stomach.

He had messaged the previous night that his chauffeur will pick her at 9 AM sharp. SAF was well known in the city and should be known to most drivers, so she gave that as the pickup point. She came early to the rendezvous so that her garrulous mother doesn't notice the extra excitement in her face. A sudden thought came to her, “What will she think if she finds out? She’ll first inform dad and then a mini mourn session will be orchestrated by her. She’ll tell her usual nonsense about honor, tradition and how my shameful act of giving myself to the guy I like the most has tarnished everything. Crap. Thank god I didn't have to hear her sermons again”. She smiled to herself. She can handle her mother. One problem could be the extreme scenario.

Preethi, at the disastrous age of 23, stood a 5 ft 7 inches, with a round face featuring grey eyes that radiates sensuousness, lips that are pinkish and that when parted displays perfectly arranged teeth. Life was extraordinarily smooth for her with a under graduate degree, a well-paid (She would say that it’s just a perception) job and this latest addition – A guy who’s jobless (He uses a much more euphemistic term called Entrepreneur) but has plenty of the piece of paper that matters the most in life due to a rich grandfather and a ridiculously rich father. Now this new addition is also at a disastrous age of 24.

At 9 AM, an Audi A4 came to a halt in front of her. The chauffeur, a traditional cinematic type, wearing all white uniform, adorned a white cap too, took something from his shirt pocket and looked at it for a second or two. Then his eyes moved around, searching for something, finally settling the gaze upon Preethi. He moved towards her and asked in perfect English, “Are you Ms.Preethi?”

For Preethi, this was the moment when she has to unshackle all her fears and nod her head. What if anyone she knows, sees her getting into an Audi A4? In a cosmopolitan, it won’t set the tongues rolling but one of the many relative setting their gaze on this very much conspicuous Audi A4 is more than enough to pay attention to who gets into it. She knows she’s thinking too much. He used to say that all the time, “Honey, You've got lot many assets from head to toe but thinking is not one of them. So don’t bother doing it”. As if someone gave her a kick to come back from the reverie, she came back to her senses and looked at the driver, nodding her head, said “Of course, I’m Preethi. Shall we get moving? ”

II

The ride to the farm house was majestic to her. She felt like a queen travelling in a chariot to King’s chamber to offer herself. This royal thought sent shivers down her whole body. It’s always better when the human mind behaves like a horse with a blinder. In those cases, what matters, is the destination and not the external factors. In her case, the blinders were sporadic.

It all started going haywire 15 days back. What started as a simple whatsapp chat session, went little complex. It was during that chat, the conversation became so intimate that it ended in a peculiar request from her. “Can you send your picture? I mean I want to see you without clothes”

The next 15 days felt like an eternity. She was enjoying each and every moment of it. He brought out all her hidden fantasies, suppressed feelings. He made her long for him; He made her think only about him; In Short she was completely possessed of his thoughts.

And suddenly her phone sung his favorite song “In the merry month of May”, from the album “Rocky road to Dublin”.

It was her brother.

Again she felt the nervousness. “Did he see me anywhere? Otherwise why will he call now?” She followed the usual routine of disconnecting the call and was thinking whether to dial back or not. 

“If he had seen me, the first thing he’s going to do is call mom and innocently ask about my whereabouts. He’s a momma boy, who is more than candid to her. I don’t understand how he shares everything with her when I don’t share anything. He thinks mom understands him very well but mom can never understand me. For her I’m always an imperfection, a ticking time bomb waiting to explode. If he had called her, then I would've got a call from either mom or dad. So it must be something else“.

She dialed his number.

“Hey Arun”

“Hey. Where are you?”

Don’t think. Just be spontaneous when not speaking the truth.

“I… I… am on the way to office.” She stammered but completed the sentence and waited for the reaction from the other side and then continued “Why? Is there a problem?”

“No. Don’t forget to recharge for my number.”

Phew. She can breathe easy now.

Now the smile was back on her face. She must go easy on her imaginations.

“Sure. I’ll” and she cut the call. She hadn't confided to Arun about her relationship. She wasn't sure whether he would understand it. Arun was extreme right and orthodox inside the house and the opposite outside. She wasn't sure which part was the true Arun or did he have anything individual? I can never share anything with him until he has a stable ideology and thought process.

Does she have an ideology? A stable thought process? If she had, would she be ready to bunk office to go to that guy’s farm house? This is all because of the sporadic blinder. She never thought about anything when she decided to spend time with him but from the morning she felt like the blinders were off and she could feel the pressure of the external factors.

III

The car took a left turn on the East Coast Road into a deserted street. Preethi was astonished at the sheer size of the bungalows on both sides of the street. The astonishment was slowly turning to fear the moment she realized the kind of society she has to deal with in case the relationship progresses into a marriage.

“Stop thinking about your future and be in the romantic mood, please” she told herself.

The car stopped in front of the wrought iron gates, which were taller than her. As if sensing the car, the gate swung open automatically to reveal the bungalow inside. She felt like a student entering the examination hall.

The chauffeur stopped the car in front of the double mahogany doors.

“You can go inside, madam” said the Chauffeur, pointing his right hand towards the door.

“Am I really doing this? Having progressive thoughts on virginity is one thing but all those hold true only till the moment when a decision has to be made. How easy it would be if I didn't have to think about this? What if he starts hating me after this? He might think that I’m desperate for this. He was desperate too. But the guys are always afforded the luxury of passing the buck to the girl. But I don’t have that luxury.”

Preethi dialed his number. The familiar voice of him soothed all her apprehensions.

“Hi”

“Hey Preethi. Have you reached?”

“Yes. Are you inside the house?”

“No. I had to check on an important work in office. My work will complete in another 10 minutes. I’ll come after that. I've informed my assistants there. They’ll take good care of you until I come”

“OK. Come soon”

The moment she hung up, she saw a couple come from inside, welcoming her to the house. “Are these two the assistants he was talking about?”

They led her to the spacious hall which had sofas, arranged in an L shape, with one sofa placed adjacent to a staircase and another close to the wall. The cost of each sofa, she guessed, might be her six months’ salary. A glass teapoy had been placed in front of the sofas. She sat in one of the sofa.

“Boss told us that you’re a very special guest. Please tell me anything you want. I’ll get it for you” said the guy and he also introduced the woman as his wife. They both were the caretakers of this farmhouse.

“No. Thank you. Now, I know whom to ask if I need something!”

The last sentence brought a sheepish grin on the assistant’s face. “You can look around the house until boss comes”.

Once they left to look after their errands, Preethi started looking around the bungalow, where she might be living if things fell smooth into place. The grandeur of that hall fascinated her. Coming from a modest background where the home’s roof is touchable with a single jump, the high ceiling, the ceiling fans with lights at the bottom was new and beautiful for her.

“Mom and dad will be astonished to see this house. Mom will be talking about this to all her friends. How big and beautiful the house was and she will talk about this for years to come”

“Once I’m married, I should bring them here often. They’ll have the most unforgettable time of their life living in a bungalow near the beach. We can never buy such a house in our lifetime. Once they come here, they’ll want to come here again and again.”

A sudden unwanted thought came to her. Wait              

IV

“Will Dad and Mum want to come here again and again? How comfortable will they feel in this world? For them, the happiness is being content with what they have. Despite mom’s astonishing remarks about the upper class, she can never mingle with them. Of course dad too feels uncomfortable with upper class society.”

One incident stuck her sharply. When Preethi had invited her friend’s family to her house, her friend’s father took out his Business Card and gave it to her father. He didn't know the etiquette of Business Card exchange. He happily smiled at the card, caressed and felt the material, inhaled the aroma of the card and thrust it into his shirt pocket. Preethi can never forget the disappointment exhibited by her friend’s father. That guy went a notch higher and asked if Preethi’s father possessed any card. Without any embarrassment, her father replied “No. I don’t like using these cards.” That guy looked at her father for a while and left the house. Preethi stopped bringing her friends altogether to her home.

“What if my would-be- father-in-law pulls a business card out of his wallet and look down upon my father because he doesn't have one? How bad of me to put my father in such an embarrassing position”

Economics of the family and the way one person is brought up defines their thoughts, actions, decision making etc. With more sophistication comes the need for more luxury. Preethi, despite a high paying job, belongs to the class that looks at sophistication as a destructive thing in life. She could feel the blinders getting thrown away and all the thoughts collide with each other inside her head. Her head was trying to find its own “God Particle”, not to determine the origin of thoughts but to see if a clear decision making thought was plausible.

Her mind was racing now. “What the hell is happening to me? It’s like a dream; I don’t know where this thought process started but it has pushed me to a confused status. Yes, I was thinking how nice it’ll be for Mom and dad to live here but I know it’s not possible”

“Love, marriage and economic state are interlinked. How much ever he likes me, deep down, he can never understand my thinking. It’s the same for me.”

Her mind was getting some clarity and she felt her mind moving towards a decision.

“It’s easy to sleep with him today but at some point, I've to take a decision; whether he’s the right man for me or not.”

“Until then let’s hold these thoughts; keep them aside; be good friends.”

“I shouldn't drag this. I should call him and inform him that I cannot do it today.”

At that very moment, she heard the sound of a car followed by footsteps and the handsome figure of Harish entered the house. He came straight to her and hugged her with all the comfort he can offer.

“Sorry Honey. I made you wait for a long time, is it? I’m extremely sorry”. And he planted a peck on her cheek. “Shall we go upstairs? I've got to show a lot of things to you”

With all those earlier thoughts taking a back seat, she followed him upstairs. Again the horse blinder analogy came to her mind. She felt the blinders too. With each footstep, she forgot all fears, complications and problems. Now all she had was anticipation and desire to give him the best possible love. He was her jockey; she trusted him to drive her.

The complicated feelings, she had earlier were replaced by pure burning fire inside her. A wildfire. The fire that pushed her to travel to his farm house overtook all the other emotions. She just hoped that she doesn't regret her decision.

She hugged him from behind and went close to his ears and murmured sensuously “I’m all yours!”