Ramesh ran into Suresh at the breakfast table the next day, along with a group of guys from his hostel block. "Welcome Casanova! Please tell us who were you hooking up with, that you landed up half naked back at the hostel?" Suresh asked, in a loud voice.
"Oh c'mon, I don't want to discuss it," Ramesh replied.
"I did see him going to Gayatri's room last night," said one of the guys. Ramesh had forgotten that other guys did go into the GH to hook up with their girlfriends, and was suddenly worried that his daily visits to Room 105F could have been noticed.
"Ooh, Gayatri? What, batch toppers hooking up with each other? Did you get a bite of that juicy ass?" asked another guy.
"Forget it guys, I told you I don't want to discuss it," Ramesh said again.
"Bugger, I woke up at 4 am to let you into the room, I deserve to know the dirty details. Else, next time you knock, I may not open the door," Suresh teased him.
"A gentleman doesn't kiss and tell," Ramesh said, winking. He realised that these guys won't let him be in peace, unless he gave them some gossip.
"Ooh, was there kissing involved?"
"Yes, lots of kissing," Ramesh said with a laugh. It was kind of half true, he thought to himself.
He had kissed a lot
, and they don't need to know it was her feet that he had kissed.
"Did you get into her pants?" another guys asked.
"
I don't even get into my pants when I am at her place
," Ramesh thought to himself.
"I won't go into details but there was lots of nudity involved," he answered. "
They don't need to know I was the one in the nude, in front of three fully clothed women,
" he thought to himself. In his mind, it was more of an inside joke, and a way to get the guys to lay off from picking on him.
A harmless quip,
he mused. Little did he know that this particular harmless quip would land him in a big soup.
College rumours are like viral memes. No one know why a particular meme goes viral, but when one does, the whole world knows about it. Similarly, the gossip about Ramesh hooking up with Gayatri, with "lots of kissing" and "lots of nudity involved" with a bit of "he confessed to us himself" added, spread through the batch grapevine over the next week, mutating with more and more imagined dirty details with every whisper of "Did you hear about Ramesh and Gayatri?" between friends.
Gayatri got to know about it, because one of the girls eagerly shared the gossip with Mallika, who promptly passed it on to Gayu. She was furious. "How dare that lowlife let people believe that I am sleeping with him?", she fumed. She made up her mind to punish him in a way that would humiliate him further.