Stranger 7

She woke up before the house did, before the sun rose. She brought in the packets of milk that the sleepy milkman had delivered, heated it up, and left it out to cool. Polished the child's shoes, and those of her husbands. Laid out their clothes, filled up the water bottles; Worked on the mise en place for the day's meals; it was chilly outside, full of smog, but beads of sweat were beginning to form on her forehead as she bent on the stoves stirring the gravy. One glance at the clock told her she had barely enough time to run the water and wake up her child; and disregarding the stabbing pain of her plantar fasicitis, she ran upstairs; bathed and clothed the child and in the midst of helping the cook prepare breakfast and packing the lunches. Finally, with both out of the door, she sat down with her cup of tea - the first thing she would have, in the 2.5 hours that she had been awake for, and opened her laptop to check her schedule.

With a sigh she noted that her calls began in the next 15 mins, and would barely give her enough time to bathe before she left for work. She would have to skip breakfast again.

She reached work, with a growling stomach to which she could not pay attention; for it needed to be diverted to the interviews that the HR team had lined up for her. Fire drills, close calls, meetings, improvement programs and deadlines - all in a days job. It was 8 PM, and she was yet to have her breakfast. The cup of tea had curdled in her stomach long ago and was making her nauseous and light headed. The last meal she'd had was her brunch the previous day.

Calls from the nanny informing that the child was being difficult, told her it was time to head home and get the child to study and eat dinner. It was already 11 by the time she could wade through the traffic and reach home, 2 pairs of accusing eyes looked back at her to say that she was late again, and wasnt a good enough mother. She had resigned to being inadequate now. It was as though nothing she did was ever good enough or satisfactory even.
Asking the child about its day, she cleaned up the slew of toys and food spread out in the room. Put all the books back into the school bag; sharpened all the pencils searched every nook and cranny for the eraser. Put the basket out for the milk man, cleaned the kitchen, realised that there wasnt anything to eat, to popped a hershey's kiss into her mouth just to allow her stomach the illusion of food; ironed the clothes needed for the next day, put in the laundry; got back the clothes hung out to dry, folded them up; and finally crawled into bed, having no more energy to even remove her makeup or change her clothes.

"how lazy can you be, how can you sleep in the clothes that you wore to work" grumbled the husband, but she was too far gone to even hear it.

One would think, she had her hands and her mind full. That she had no more space for anything or anyone else. She, though was hollow inside; she had left a piece of herself half way across the world.

She missed what she once thought never existed. She was now made aware of something she had striven so hard to suppress, that she had begun believing that it never existed - and that something was her. The fact that she existed independent of relationships, of responsibilities, of expectations, of "should be"s and "ought to"s was a fact that was long forgotten, that she was now aware of; and hence the hollowness; rather, the the awareness that she was hollow inside.

And, there, in the middle of the night, among all the other work emails that kept flooding her phone, was a tiny 2 word message that filled that hollow.

- - - - - - - - 

Stranger 6

She stood there, undecided, confused, fingering the mangal-sutra that hung around her neck; clutching the phone in the other - debating the morals and rights and wrongs of what was going on in her head; when suddenly the doors of the elevator opened up; scaring her, freezing her, instilling a sense of terror and euphoria in her.

Her entire life up until that point in time was planned, was meticulous. Everything that had been done, was after careful consideration for the people around her, and for the people around her.

The moment the doors opened, was the moment that life as she knew it, had ended.  All her decisions, her contemplation thrown to wind as he stepped out to gather her in his arms. In one fluid moment, she was in his arms and he was kissing her.
A part of her brain telling her that this was wrong, that she was a married woman, that no matter what the culture, it was always frowned upon. That he was a married man, and she would be the despised "other woman" if she allowed this to continue. That he was from half way around the world, and that she was a traditional orthodox south indian brahmin who was married happily (?) and was responsible for people back home.

That part of the brain was annihilated when he held her closer and his tongue began its onslaught in her mouth. His kisses were raw, full of need and want, demanding and dominating, bruising even. It was as if he was holding on to his dear life as he kissed her.

In the middle of a hotel lobby, in full view of people around them, in a foreign country - that is when it began. The story that was destined to stop as abruptly as it had begun. A story that had no beginning or end. All that there was, was this. This moment. this kiss and this passion. No one had any more control on anyone else, except to hold on to each other and let the passion wash over them.