Girl of My Dreams. The cover page was curled into itself and the author photograph was half visible. A faint smile came over her face. She half closed her eyes and imagined it was Daman between her thighs, like she had done all those nights in her bed while touching herself. Almost instantly, her body reacted and shuddered. The thought of Daman woke up her senses and made them surface like a kraken. Suddenly, it was like she was made of nerve endings. She moaned. It encouraged her husband. He licked vigorously, thrusting his tongue inside her. She held his hair and shoved him deeper. She gasped. He held her other hand. It wasn’t a sailor’s rough hand but
Daman’s. She removed her other hand from her husband’s head and turned over the cover page.
Daman was staring at her from the book. Her toes curled and her eyes were half closed. Her husband tried to move up but she pushed him down again. He was now shoving a couple of fingers inside her. She was soaking wet. She panted. But before she could sense it, her husband had crawled right back up. His cock rubbed against her belly and he wanted to kiss her. ‘Not like this,’ she said and pushed him away. She turned away from him, her ass bumped against his thighs. Her husband took the cue. He held her by the hip. She stationed her eyes at the inside cover of the book.
Daman’s eyes danced under the night lamp. Her husband slapped her with his cock and with one quick thrust, he entered her. He mounted her and fucked her like a rabid animal. Shreyasi bit the pillow to keep herself from taking Daman’s name. ‘I love you,’ her husband said. You don’t. ‘Shut
up and fuck me,’ grumbled Shreyasi. He did exactly that. But not long after, she felt his thighs shudder. He grunted loudly and came inside her. Once done, he slumped to the side, giggling and panting. ‘It was good, yeah?’ he asked. Shreyasi nodded.
Shreyasi slipped out of the bed. He called her name out. She didn’t look back. Instead she picked her clothes and hurried to the washroom. She washed herself, took a long hot shower, thought of Daman and made herself come. Once done, she dried herself, sat on the commode lid and buried her face into her palms. The men in her life had always disappointed her. Her husband and Daman.
She cried thinking of both of them.
12
She’s at the wheel of the car. We are laughing about something she said. A jute bag filled with bottles of vodka, whisky and tequila clangs loudly at her feet. She picks it up and keeps it on her lap. She takes out a bottle of vodka and wiggles it in front of my face. I shake my head. But
Shreyasi has already unscrewed the cap. She’s now drinking from it. Before long, the bottle is on my lips as well. I try to shake it away but Shreyasi keeps pressing it on to my lips. The alcohol burns a path to my stomach. Finally, I manage to sway away from the bottle’s mouth. A little vodka spills on to my T-shirt. We both giggle. I haven’t eaten anything since morning and the vodka goes straight to my brain. I start to feel a little woozy. My eyes water. I bend towards her.
She gives me a little peck on my lips, wetting them, her hand on my chest. I try to lean in more but she turns her head towards the road. It’s too late. A pair of headlights shine at us. She swerves towards the railing and slams into it. The car flips . . . Seconds later, bloodied and broken, we are looking at each other but we are smiling . . . We are alive . . .
Daman woke up panting in his drenched bed. Fuck, he thought. It was the seventh straight day he had pissed his bed. He chewed his pills and smoked three cigarettes by the time he walked out of the washroom. He had been smoking like a steam engine for the past week, running through four packets in a day just to calm his nerves. He had been grappling with his nightmares and the freakish reappearance of Shreyasi. On the day he met Shreyasi, he called Puchku and asked for the description of the girl who had met her on the way back from school. It matched with the girl he had met at the British Council. He wondered why Shreyasi wouldn’t just meet him. Why would she play these games, meet under changed names, go and see his sister of all the people? It scared him a bit. He wondered if she was Shreyasi at all. Shouldn’t he have felt something if he saw her after all these months? He wondered if she was an ‘off the rails’, unhinged pretender. Someone who read the posts and the book and was now pretending to be Shreyasi. He considered it as a real possibility but then she had used the same email ID as Shreyasi’s. Moreover, apart from his family and Sumit, no one knew of Shreyasi’s existence, not even Avni. This girl knew about Goa. It had to be her.
Since that day in the library, he had frantically mailed Shreyasi without much success.
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected] Where were you?
Daman
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected] Why are you back?
Daman
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected] Why not meet me properly? We can sit and talk.
Daman
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected] ?
Daman
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected] What the fuck is going on? Why are you playing these games?
Daman
It had been three days since he’d sent the last mail and she hadn’t replied to him. As Daman brushed his teeth, his phone beeped. Shreyasi had finally replied. His heart thumped and toothpaste froth dribbled out of his mouth as he read it.
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected] Why play games? Because why not? What fun it would be if we are like the others? Sitting and talking isn’t really our thing, is it? Would you have appreciated it had I just waltzed into your life and said, ‘Hi, nice to see you again?’
No, that’s not the Shreyasi you love. Do I need to remind you what kind of a couple we really were? Please find attached the 860 posts you wrote on us. Do you know my favourite Daman-and-Shreyasi story? It’s the one where we, me and you, Daman and Shreyasi, tail my petulant, insufferable and arrogant ex-boyfriend, corner him, threaten him, torture him, and leave him inches from his death, tied naked outside the reception of his office. It might have never happened but it could have, had the Goa trip ended differently for us. So kudos to your imagination. Read them again and you will know why we were different before you dared to put that crap about us in the book. But I still love you, baby.
Shreyasi, The Girl of Your Dreams
Daman read the mail and saw the truth in it. She couldn’t have just walked in and said she was
Shreyasi. That would have been such a disappointment after months of romanticizing her. What she was doing here was at least getting his attention, bothering him, reducing his brain to mush, making him piss his bed and smoke like a chimney, consuming his time and mind, and that, he was sure, was what she was aiming at. Shreyasi from his posts would have done exactly this. The behavioural patterns of this girl who called herself Shreyasi were just like the one he had written about in the posts. She was exactly like the girl he had constructed in his head from little snippets of conversations in those numerous nightmares. It had to be her, there was no doubt any more in
Daman’s head. Only a little dejection.
Sitting on the bed, reading her mail again, he wondered why he questioned Shreyasi’s resurfacing and even her existence despite the obvious markers that proved it was really her. He realized that it was because he had expected his memory to respond to the real Shreyasi. But he
had felt nothing. Nothing. No floodgates of memory had opened. It just left him with an emptiness where the fantasies of Shreyasi lay. Shreyasi had come back and spoilt everything.
He closed his eyes and heard the last words she had said.
‘Careful what you wish for. I might just come and get a book signed.’
13
Avni banged head-on into two of her co-workers, making them spill the files they were carrying.
‘Sorry!’ she muttered and ran towards the washroom. Closing the door behind her, she fumbled through her handbag and backpack and placed her clothes and make-up on the ledge of the basin.
She was already late for Daman’s book event. He had called twice to check where she had reached. She had selected a pretty little black dress for the evening. Hurriedly, she applied the foundation and while it set she put on her dress. Breathe, Avni, Breathe. It took her fifteen minutes to change and do her make-up. She stuffed her office clothes into the two bags and ran out of the washroom. She could change out of her comfortable shoes later. She took the stairs to the parking lot two at a time. She threw her bags on to the back seat and jumped into the front. She revved the engine and backed out of her parking space. She had just moved a few metres when she heard a loud thump and a shriek. She braked hard. Her heart leapt to her mouth. Fuck. She clenched the steering wheel. Not today. Not today. Not today. She turned to look at the damage. Much to her relief, the girl whose scooter she had hit was already standing, rubbing herself off. Avni hopped out of the car and ran towards the girl.
‘Are you okay? Let me help you,’ Avni said and helped the girl who was trying to get her scooter upright. ‘Listen, I’m sorry, I didn’t look while reversing. I am ready to pay for any damages.’
‘It’s okay,’ said the rattled girl, not looking at Avni.
‘Are you sure?’
The girl nodded and dragged her scooter away from Avni’s car. ‘I’m okay. I will be fine,’ she said.
Avni stood there awkwardly for a few moments, and then walked back to the car. She closed her eyes and said a little prayer before turning the engine on. She put the car in gear and backed out slowly. She drove towards the exit. It was already 5.40 p.m. There was no way she would get to the event on time. She was paying the parking fee when she spotted the girl she had hit in her rear- view mirror, standing with her hands on her waist. Every few seconds she would kick the scooter but the engine would gurgle and stop. After a few tries she put her hands on her head, exasperated.
Avni switched on the blinkers and parked the car on the side. She ran towards the girl. ‘Hey?’ She waved at the girl as she walked towards her. ‘Can I help you?’ The girl looked at Avni blankly.
Avni reached the girl and asked her, ‘Can I drop you somewhere?’ The girl shook her head but
Avni insisted. ‘Look, I’m sorry for this. You can park your scooter here and call the mechanic tomorrow? You can send me the bill,’ she said and gave the girl her business card. ‘Let me give you a lift. Please.’
And just like that, the girl was in tears.
‘Hey? Hey? It’s okay. I’m sorry. We can go to the mechanic right now. If your parents are the problem I can talk to them and tell them it was my fault. Don’t cry,’ said Avni, holding her hand.
‘Let me talk to them?’
The girl wiped her tears. ‘It’s not about my parents. It’s just that . . .’
‘What?’
‘I needed to be somewhere,’ mumbled the girl. She now looked embarrassed to have cried.
Avni smiled. ‘Boyfriend, haan? Where are you meeting him? I will drop you wherever you want to go.’
‘I had to meet someone much more important than a boyfriend,’ said the girl, blushing like a new bride. ‘My favourite writer—’
Avni asked, ‘Who?’
‘Daman Roy, the author of The Girl of My Dreams. He has a book event today in Connaught
Place. He’s the love of my life,’ said the girl, smiling widely. Avni covered her face to suppress her smile. So cute, she thought. The girl continued, ‘It starts at six and the invite said he will be signing copies. I was already late and then this . . .’ She pointed to the scooter and her face scrunched up into a little ball. She continued, ‘I also wore this new top I bought yesterday for the event.’
The childlike enthusiasm in her eyes, the longing to meet her favourite author, was so heartening that Avni wanted to hug her. Like her, the girl too had dressed to impress and had done a better job of it. In her short white top and shiny faux leather pants she looked gorgeous. Avni felt proud to see
Daman have legitimate fans, people who had gone out, spent money, bought and read the book, and longed to meet him.
‘I can drop you there,’ said Avni. ‘I am going the same way too. Connaught Place, you said, right?’
‘I hope I am not imposing?’ she asked, her eyes glittering with innocent hope.
‘Not at all.’ Avni laughed. The girl parked her scooter and followed Avni to her car. Avni drove out of the parking lot weighing when she should tell the girl who she was. I’m the author’s girlfriend. Actually, I am more like his fiancée. ‘So where’s the book event exactly in Connaught
Place?’ asked Avni.
‘It’s at Oxford Bookstore,’ she answered, her eyes stuck at the car’s clock. ‘I’m so late! I wanted to get my book signed and click a picture with him. What if there are too many people? What if he leaves?’
‘He won’t.’
‘What if he does? He’s so pretty. I want a picture!’ squealed the girl. She took out her well-worn copy of The Girl of My Dreams from her backpack and showed the picture to Avni. ‘Isn’t he cute?
Look at him!’
‘He’s okay.’
‘Please. He’s so cute. You should read the book. Or better still, read the stuff he posted online before he wrote the book. He deleted everything now but I have it copied on my laptop. It’s so good! I read it every day,’ she gushed.
There was a long drive ahead of them so Avni asked her in good humour, ‘Hey? I just remembered. I think I know this author. He’s dating a friends’ friend. I don’t remember his girlfriend’s name though.’
‘You can’t be serious? Can you make me meet him?’ Before Avni could answer, the girl asked,
‘Is his girlfriend’s name Shreyasi?’
‘No.’
The girl frowned. ‘It doesn’t matter to me who he’s dating. For me, he will always be in love with Shreyasi. She’s his one true love. Don’t you know that they are inseparable? Other girls are just distractions,’ said the girl clutching the book to her chest like a schoolgirl.
‘You know she’s a fictional character, right? She’s just someone he probably made up for the book,’ said Avni, scowling.
The girl retorted sharply. ‘True, the Shreyasi in the book is clearly someone he made up but the
Shreyasi from his posts is real. They were in love and the stories about him and her are all true. I will make you read all of them, all 860 of them. You will know that it’s all real. He loves her.’
‘Fine,’ said Avni. ‘I will read them. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you my name. I’m Avni.’
‘I am Ashi,’ said the girl. And then suddenly, the girl’s expression changed. She kept looking at
Avni. Something had clicked inside her. ‘Hey? Are you? Are you? No! No!’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re Daman’s girlfriend!’
Avni nodded, smiling.
She buried her face in her palms. ‘Oh. My. God. I am so sorry! I am so sorry! I am so sorry! I just remembered a picture he had posted of the two of you. You two look so good together,’ she gushed.
‘Ah, too late,’ said Avni and winked at her.
‘Can I have a picture together? I want it for my Snapchat! This is unbelievable!’
‘Why not.’
The girl whipped out her phone and clicked three pictures. For the rest of the drive, she couldn’t look at Avni, too embarrassed for what she’d said. ‘So you like Daman a lot?’ asked Avni.
‘I don’t like him. I love him,’ said the girl while she checked her hair in the mirror. ‘Do you think my hair looks all right? I had gotten it streaked brown and red for a couple of days. I didn’t like it and reverted to black. I hope Daman likes it.’
14
‘Did you update your Facebook profile today?’
‘Yes.’
‘And Twitter?’
/>
‘Yes.’
‘And Instagram?’
‘Yes, Jayanti. Now stop it. It’s only six right now. Avni texted me that she’s stuck in traffic.
Maybe others are too. The idea of this book launch was yours. Don’t sweat me over it if no one turns up.’ The book launch was supposed to have begun and there were only about fifteen people waiting for Daman which in Jayanti’s words was a catastrophe. Daman took out his phone and called Avni to check where she had reached. ‘Hey? Where are you?’
‘I just parked the car. Will be there in ten minutes. And I’m getting someone with me! She’s a big fan of yours and I just met her,’ she said. Daman heard some scuffling from the other side of the phone. Avni continued, ‘She wants to talk to you. She’s freaking out. Will you talk to her?’
‘Of course,’ said Daman, scratching his head. He heard Avni pass the phone to the girl with her.
‘Hello.’ The voice of the girl trembled. ‘I’m such a big fan of yours! I . . . I can’t believe I am talking to you.’
‘Hi! What’s your name?’
‘Ashi.’
He heard the girl say to Avni, ‘Can you please not look? I’m already nervous! Walk a few steps ahead of me!’
Daman heard Avni mumble a ‘fine’ and walk away from the girl. Daman continued, ‘It was really sweet—’
‘Look at you, acting like the courteous writer acknowledging the love of a fawning reader.’