Welcome back, dear reader!
This is chapter 4 of my series - 'Forgetting Trisha in Bangalore'. The story picks up right from where chapter 3 left off. So, if you're starting the series here, well, you can do that. But it might be easier to follow the plot if you start from chapter 1.
Here's a recap anyhow - our main character, Arun, is trying to forget his ex, Trisha. Arun and Trisha had been in a long-term relationship for four years until Trisha left him to fulfil her parents' wishes.
So, how does our guy overcome his loneliness and regrets? Well, for starters, being unable to afford a vacation to Bangkok, he goes ahead and gets his cock banged by a mysterious prostitute in a shady hotel in Bangalore. He also develops some sort of feelings for her, despite telling himself constantly that 'Pretty Woman' was just a propaganda film by big sex-work.
At work, Arun has to also contend with the attitude of his co-worker, Twinkle, who seems to regard him with only slightly more disfavour than Lex Luthor did with Superman. It seemed like the two of them were going to get into an ugly spat at some point, when Arun stumbled across a secret that Twinkle had been keeping from her family. But before he could tell her that her secret was out, Twinkle catches him with his pants down (literally), having read and deleted the chats exchanged between Arun and the mysterious hooker.
Now, for reasons unknown, Twinkle has asked Arun to take her to his apartment till the hubbub dies over. Will Arun be willing to give her a hand despite his annoyance towards her for deleting his conversation with the hooker? Will he be able to figure out his feelings towards the hooker and the larger issue of his loneliness?
Read on and find out!
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After returning from the men's washroom, Arun did a flyby of Ishita's and Raj's offices. Observing a definite lack of Twinkle in the vicinity, he had made his way to their workstation, feeling a considerable sense of relief. It seemed that she really had changed her mind about reporting him to Ishita.
He was safe. For now.
But if she had taken screenshots of the conversation with the hooker - well, then he was fucked, and not in the nice way where his cock would wind up inside someone.
'I guess I'll just have to find out what the situation is,'' He thought grimly.
Twinkle wasn't a tall woman, so he didn't spot her until he neared their shared workstation. She was bent over her keyboard, working on their queries. Her straight, slightly brownish hair was a little windswept from the effort she was giving to her work.
Arun would have found it cute on any other day on a different girl.
Today though, was a different matter. The sight of his supposed protege filled Arun with a sense of frustration. 'Was she really engrossed in her work?' He wondered. 'Or was she faking it to blindside him with the blackmail?'
A twinge of annoyance pulsed through him. He hadn't forgotten that she had deleted his entire conversation with the hooker, meaning that he'd never be able to find out what the prostitute had wanted to tell him.
'What if it had been something important?' He wondered, as he dropped into his seat. His mind went back to the last part of her final message before the chat was deleted.
'I've been thinking a lot lately, and I just wanted to let you know that -'
Again, he wondered - what had she wanted to tell him? Had he fucked her so hard she wanted to give him a refund? Or, she could be letting him know that she was free to go at it again this weekend? (perhaps finally in a saree?) Or, was it her way of telling him that she was tired of the sex work life, and was now ready to join him in on the edge of poverty at an IT office?
Whatever it was, he wasn't about to find out anytime soon.
Sure, he could type out a message to her right away, asking her to resend those messages. But something told him that she wouldn't be entirely truthful this time. The wording had suggested that she wanted to tell him something delicate.
Asking for her to write to him again would probably get a nicely scripted, curated reply.
He scratched his chin ruefully, and shot a glance at Twinkle.
'Damn you,' He thought. It was true that her life had gone haywire as well, now that her parents knew the true extent of her job and the actual pay that was given to them. But blackmailing him after deleting his private conversations... that was fucked up.
Something surprised him about her behaviour though. After she had threatened to report him, he had been expecting a 'Hell hath no fury' kind of welcome upon his return, not a 'Oh, you're back. Nice.'
Maybe she was playing it cool? For a few minutes, he waited, just in case Twinkle felt like giving an evil villainess speech.
But she didn't even bother to look away from her screen.
'Okay. Whatever game this is, I'm ready to play' He decided, before turning to his own keyboard. A lump formed in his throat as he realised for the first time that the sexy picture sent by the hooker was gone as well.
Gone forever, most likely.
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For the next hour, the two of them had gone about their usual work. They pretended as if Twinkle's parents weren't about to upend her life, and that Arun's job didn't lie on a fine balance. They rectified bits of code, Twinkle filled in comments to their development team, and they performed the usual theatrics when the
chaiwalla
(Tea server, but I guess if you'd seen Slumdog Millionaire, you'd remember the way Anil Kapoor proclaimed 'A Chaiwalla!' to the audience) served the tea with just a little too much sugar.
Emails were typed, clients were pacified, new passwords were set for all of Arun's accounts (he looked at Twinkle out of the corner of his eye as he changed them to gauge her reaction; she didn't even bother to look over). A normal routine appeared to be prevailing.
To Arun, it seemed that they were going to pretend, like an Indian couple whose bedroom was deader than a doornail, that nothing had happened. That the events of the past hour were just one big 'Gotcha!'.
He was about to convince himself of this, when Twinkle's phone finally rang. Arun could have likened it to the sound of the hangman's toll, except that somewhat inconveniently, Twinkle had set one of AR Rahman's livelier songs as her ringtone.
Still, he didn't need to look at the caller ID to know that it was her parents who were calling. He thought with a sudden chill, 'What if they were coming to fetch her?'
The mere knowledge that Twinkle's father, thousands of miles away as he was, could potentially show up at their office via the next train was enough to make Arun consider purchasing a bunker for the whole office.
But Twinkle was unperturbed. Glancing at the screen, she allowed the phone to play out its ringtone. The sound of AR Rahman's 'Tu Hi Re' floated around them, oddly lending a sense of calm to Arun's burdened soul. Twinkle also gently hummed along with the tune while typing out a comment on their code with a flourish. The song slowly wound down, bringing the attempted phone call to an end along with it. When everything was silent again, Twinkle stretched and finally turned to give him her full attention.
"My parents have told me to leave the office immediately," She said simply. "They had already called a while back, so I figured I'd let them try a little harder to speak to me again" She took a deep breath, keeping her tone very matter-of-fact.
"Apparently, I don't even have to bother with informing Ishita or asking for the back pay I'm owed." She shrugged.
"Oh," Was all that Arun could say. This was expected, of course. About an hour had elapsed since he had spoken to Twinkle's parents and that was not nearly enough time for them to read 'A Room of One's Own' so as to radically change their views in support of their daughter.
But what was he supposed to do, exactly? He felt bad, of course. It had been a fuck up on his part, revealing information that Twinkle's parents were not supposed to do. But she couldn't blame him for that, surely? How was he supposed to know? This wasn't the sort of thing you hid from your family and hoped would go away, like their last CEO's affair baby. You hid
normal
things from your parents, like your gf/bf, your grades, and your feelings.
Besides, a tiny part of Arun was telling him that she was getting what she deserved for snooping into his conversations.
Twinkle regarded him carefully. Perhaps she had intended to look serious, but the smaller size of her body meant that it came off as catlike more than anything. She leaned forward, trying to talk to him in a more confidential manner. But, rather than having the desired effect, it gave Arun a direct glimpse of her cleavage. His eyes widened as he caught sight of her firm, milky white peaks and the valley in between.
'Short girl but well-endowed boobs' Noted the caveman part of his mind and filed away next to the folder containing the PS1 Lara Croft.
A look of consternation passed over his face as he wrestled with suddenly being horny and concerned. The spasmic effect it had on his features must have passed scrutiny. Because, after a moment, Twinkle appeared satisfied at his reaction and continued.
"As you would have probably guessed, I'm not going to do any of that. I don't-" She shuddered. "I don't want to marry someone who just wants a free maid and a fucktoy."
'Ah' Arun thought. But then, was the nub of the whole Arranged Marriage deal. It was a business transaction, essentially. For the guy, it was all about his salary and as mentioned earlier, the ability to shout 'whoopie!' when Virat Kohli hit a six.
For a girl, it was about her cooking or opinion on families (aka how soon can you pop out kids). Being employed was okay, but sometimes also a negative. (I mean, would you really be able to stand it if the neighbour aunty simpered about how they were so rich that their DIL didn't have to work?)
It was better these days, of course. Lots of folks were cool with their kids dating provided that they picked the guy/girl and that any ongoing girlfriends/boyfriends were safely dumped and blocked.
