Sunday, January 21, 2007

Diminished Responsibility

Everything looked beautiful to Maya tonight.

It seemed Manu would never leave her thoughts, exciting her every passing second. Heavily excited she was, that her excitement flushed out of her cheeks as embarrassment. A combined sense of womanliness and unabated thrill spread all across her face and body, like the currents she sensed.

The french window in the hotel bathroom was uplifted by the million glitters of the city lights, abundant with sparkling towers and teeming streets, in red and yellow. The lights picked up her moods as she sketched the San Francisco skyline with her slender right index. Drops of soapy water dripped over the tinted pane, smelling flowery just as the description on the Bath Soap said. "An oriental fragrance, woodsy and rosy." As she showered, she smiled thinking of her first kiss. Their moments of intimacy that concreted their love for each other. Her graceful responses of feminity in times like those.

For the next few seconds, she stood in front of the mirror and robed and disrobed the bathroom linen. The white cotton accentuated her pale sensual skin. A definite blush glowed her skin and promised eternal happiness. Bulbs of water were still dripping from the tip of her hairs as she slowly tiptoed to the closet to open her bag. And from under her bag, beneath old pajamas and sweaters, she pulled her laced night-gown out. The new white cotton night-gown and its sheer overcoat soon graciously fell on her lean shoulders, revealing her collar-bone, naked and beautiful.

Fast heartbeats, silence, embarrassment and beauty orchestrated her steps out of the bathroom.

She found Manu on the bed, asleep. Asleep?

Drunk!

Maya patted his shoulders and whispered, "Manu. Manu."

"Why did you get drunk, Manu?"

"Manu. Manu."

Her whispers tapered into complete silence when Manu moaned in an annoyed tone "Don't disturb yaar!"

Shaken and shattered, Maya whimpered the incredulity of the moment as she changed into a pair of pajamas and her sweater.

She climbed on the bed, kissed Manu on his forehead, careful this time not to wake him up and wept to herself, "Why should one be disappointed on one's wedding night."