The letter had lain on the desk for a week. There seemed no point in reading it. And anyways, I could still smell her around me. No point in reading the constant reminders of one’s failings.
I had anyways survived an extremely bad week at work. The boss was about to be laid off; the next man in seemed to be extremely hostile to my continuity--not just at work, but in the world in general! Worse, I had failed to deliver on time, for the second time in a week. Now, that was a first. It had hurt on Monday morning. I spoke with the CDE and decided the transparencies would not be ready by the next day. We had yet to begin ideating on the copy, much less start writing the copy. The hurt was slowly replaced with embarrassment as we hurtled from one failure to another. It was all falling into place—a dark alley that seemed to be running up my now-much-abused arse. And there was this throbbing headache to handle. The weekend was truly to be a refuge from stress.
But how would the stress go away when her clothes still lay strewn on the bed? The formidable rack of shoes had fallen over, spewing its contents all over the hallway. A few perfume bottles had cracked, evidently remnants of a struggle. The room smelt pleasant, almost as if she was around, hiding behind a couch waiting to spring a surprise. The smell was too much for my now-sensitive nose. Perhaps the cat was still around, and had soiled the bed. Surprising how her room repulsed me already!
We stayed in separate rooms, but she usually slept in my bed. We fought all our battles there--wondering how long before we would reach a point of no return. Her career was just shaping up, and the ego hassles from work would find their way back home. I had enough on my hands to think about where she was coming from! We usually began with the genial abuse and ended up slapping each other before hitting the bed to quench our animal passions. It was a strange love by all means.
She loved the strange melancholy nature of our pad. I loved the view of the river, even though the mosquitoes and the stench explained the low rent we had to pay. It had been rented from a pensioner safely lodged in a city 300 miles from here. As long as the rent checks reached him before the end of the month, he'd stay out of our business. She loved lighting those infernal scented candles on the long windowsills. We had lovely French windows that were never left open, lest the stench slinked in.
Even so, I wondered if her true fear was that her husband would someday see her lighting those beloved candles of hers at a stranger’s house. It was the typical precursor to a night full of passion, and short on sleep. They had been a happy couple.
I hated myself for triggering off the worst argument of their married life. She was barely an acquaintance then, an object of animal lust, who was to be leered at in the private sanctuary of one’s mind. I loved taking off her clothes while she walked past at the Gym. She had that figured out much before we spoke for the first time. It seemed to be the fuel for her vanity. As every beautiful woman figured, she hated being told she was pretty; or so she pretended. She desperately wanted every male on the floor to lust for her, to beseech her for a glance, perhaps even kill each other for a chance to sleep with her.
It was probably my harmlessness that helped her choose. Darwin could screw his nose and turn over in his grave for all I cared. We hit it off right-away. She pretended to be fascinated by my profession, “Copywriters are quite the romantic sorts, eh?” I had nothing to say, as usual. A silent mysterious smile was a nice weapon for the dumbstruck. It struck me as unusual that we had begun getting so intimate within a week of acknowledging each other’s existence. She was truly living in the fast lane.
It was then that she told me about her husband. Globe-trotting, versatile, gifted, much-venerated academic. In contrast, I seemed an oddball by all counts.
I was Darwin’s nightmare! Going by his theories, I would probably not sow as many oats as the average male of my species. Even that was a relief, going by the way my life was headed!
