"I have to ask", he said. "Do, you still talk to her?"
She was just about done with his neck, and wasn't in the mood to talk. "Hmm?" she somehow obliged.
"Is that a yes, or a no?" he demanded to know, pushing her back.
She looked at him vaguely and then slowly curled up like a cat near his legs. Then she smiled a contended smile and relished the dillema in his eyes.
"Yes, of course", she said, reaching out for a cigarette.
He sat cross legged and hunched, lighting the cigarette for her.
"So, you, still...you know..."
"No. We're done with that. But we talk....from time to time. Why do you care?"
He got up, wrapping the sheet around his waist. She promptly pulled it away.
"Why?"
"Yes, why?" she asked, playing with the corner of the sheet and smiling.
He pulled back the sheet and wrapping it around again, walked towards the window. He observed the view from his 42nd floor penthouse apartment. The glittering lights below looked so far away...the glittering stars above looked so far away. He was far away from everything, he felt.
"I don't understand you artists. Is it absoulutely necessary for you to 'explore both sides of the hemisphere', or whatever it is that you say? Is it? It's such a goddamn cliche, you know", he said waving his hands dramatically.
"You're a bit of a cliche too, darling. The big business tycoon, with the mid-life crisis, and slutty mistress", she said, taking a long, slow drag from her cigarette.
"I don't think you're slutty. Just a bit of a whore, that's all", he said, his temples throbbing with anger.
She chuckled and got up and embraced him. "I love it when you're mad", she whispered and kissed him on his lips, but he pushed her back angrily, and she fell back on the bed, rather ungracefully.
"Darling, tell me", she said, lying there as she fell, "what would you do, if your wife found out?"
"Depending on her reaction, I'd either leave her, or you...", he said lighting himself a cigarette.
"Oh...so it matters what she thinks", she said softly.
"Yes" he said feeling knotty and exasperated.
Pacing a little he went back to the bed and leaned over her. "So we're both flawed, chliched and pretentious. Do you care?", he asked, trying to forget the conversation.
"No, I don't. But you do. But it's okay", she said, and pulled him into herself.
He didn't fight it. He was a fallen man. And he couldn't do a thing about it, even if he wanted. Not when the devil in the form of this beautiful creature, was doing such wonderful things to him. He didn't even want to be redeemed.
As he drove home, he felt completely relaxed. That little cat sure knew how to deal with his moods and anxieties. Oh, she was good. She was very, very good.
A few blocks from his home, he was met with an unfamiliar sight. His beautiful picket-fenced, Victorian house was blazing with fire. Inside, you could hear from a mile away, the agonized screams of a woman. The mortified neighbours were gathered around his house, the wailing sirens of police cars and fire engines could be heard. No-one saw, as he quickly backed his car, and drove away from the ghastly scene. He needed to get away. As far away as possible.

“I won’t, I won’t, I won’t”, he said, refusing to look up from his tomato soup existence.
“But…” I said, floating in cream of mushroom.
“No. And that’s final”, he said, drowning croutons.
“But you must!” I said assassinating asparagus.
“And how do you intend to make me?” he asked, twisting his flour-dough fingers.
“I don’t know. But, please?” I pleaded, cracking my fortune-cookie knuckles.

He agreed eventually. Blue eyes red. Angry, red, red. Me ballerina-hopping-happy. Sulk, sulk, sulk. Ha, ha, ha!

What a night before the other night. No love. Love. No love. Love, love, love. Nope. No love. Oh no, but oh yes! Yes. Yes. Yes! Love. Slipping out. Spilling out. Nope. It’s gone now. Score(eventually): No love (lost).

Morning of the expected night was pregnant with twisted vein-nerve-artery dilemma and doubtful anger and joy. Eggs cracking and sizzling and tsk-tsking like vengeful, bitter-tongued mother-in-laws.

“Na, na, na. Woohoohoo!” he showered under the Victoria.
“Shit. Shit. Oh Shit!!!” I prepared breakfast in the caveman’s kitchen.

Afternoon, I was in Jamaica. He was in Tokyo.
Early evening I was in New York. He was in Los Angeles.
Late evening we were both in Las Vegas.

“And?” he asked, purple, from holding his breath.
“I haven’t seen” I said, jelly-legged and noodle-brained.

We decided to wait till it was night.

The void of time and space was filled with inky-blue melancholy. Entwined like a couple of mating snakes. As still as malaria water.

Then, it was time.

Then it was past that time.

Then it was way past that time.

I was finally a dandelion. He was finally the grand old oak he wanted to be, but didn’t know he wanted to be. We were both glad of course.

Two big, innocent eyes had seen everything. Two big ears, sticking out of a relatively small head, had heard everything. And then, in a dewdrop instance, these sensory organs forgot. The little pieces of sudden, surprising events had been carefully stored away in a little dark corner, of a fresh pink brain.

I really mean to tell you a story. I can feel this story within me. It’s trying to push itself out of me, and it’s not finding the right vent. I really, really mean to tell you… It’s a rather desperate feeling. Look, I will try. It maybe coherent…it may not be. But please listen…because, I need to speak.

There was sun everywhere. Sun in the courtyard. Sun in the rooftop. Sun in the window. Sun in the hair, the eyes, the face. Sun through a hole. Sun smeared at the edges of a hole. A little spot of sun on my right shin. Like I said… it was everywhere.
Someone was sitting in the courtyard cutting his or her nails. Someone was hanging up wet clothes to dry. Someone was getting a mustard oil massage. Someone was reading the papers. Someone was having oranges. Everyone was doing something or the other.

I was playing in my room. I had a cold. It was winter, and I was wearing a muffler and a sweater and something else I don’t remember. I was playing with a broken tobacco pipe and a very thick pair of turtle-shell rimmed glasses. I was wearing the glasses and pretending to smoke the pipe. I was my grandfather.

My parents were in the other room, quarreling tremendously, like they always quarreled.
I was used to this constant bickering. It was my lullaby when I went to sleep. It was my alarm clock when I had to wake up in time for school.

Nothing was unusual or out of order. I was looking out of the window in my room and inspecting all the activities of the courtyard with grandfather-eyes.
And I felt the sun shine brightly, directly, into my big eyes, through the inch thick lenses of the glasses. Everything was blurred and wonderful. Someone was singing a song.

This is the very last memory I have of my childhood. I know this is not exactly a story…or even an anecdote. It’s the only thing I remember of those days, and I’m dying to tell someone.
I remember I used to draw a lot…even on the walls of our two storied bungalow. I remember singing while taking a bath in the dark mezzanine floored bathroom. I remember being forced to eat fish. I remember listening to the radio. I remember sleeping under a suffocating mosquito net. I remember the smell of school. I remember the smell of my blue raincoat. But all this was before the day I looked out of my window. After that, the only other thing I remember was a complicated math problem during a class IX exam. But that was ten years later. I remember nothing before.

Except…a strange pain. Not particularly painful. But an unfamiliar, unidentifiable pain. No balm, no medicine, no syrup could cure it. It was…is…this haunting, irritating niggle that, consumes my entire body. It comes and goes. It never completely disappears.
Anyway, that’s it. Now I feel much better. Can I go to my room now? 306. Ward no.306.