And So It Happened: Chapter 1

Chapter 1

It was a sultry summer morning as he stood in the balcony, with his back to the Mumbai skyline. His open shirt caressed by the breeze, as he obsessively smoked. Through the glass doors separating the room with the terrace, his eyes took in her gentle sinuous curves, her delicate nose, her luscious lips.

Why was she in his bed, in his hotel suite. The simple answer was he was rich and he could buy anything, even a companion. The answer which wasn’t obvious but hung there like the heavy air of smoke was loneliness - gnawing him. That’s what he felt but he didn’t know it. And he didn’t like coming back to an empty room. That’s why she was there.

His eyes had an inscrutable expression, the hard lines on his face masked his loneliness. With a sigh, unconsciously he snuffed out the cigarette and walked inside. Waking her up by nuzzling her bare neck and her shoulders, he waited as she stirred and opened her eyes, smiling at him.

“Good morning, princess,” he drawled.

“Good morning,” she replied, her sleep filled eyes looking at him. He wanted to lean forward and kiss her but with a tinge of sadness remembered that wasn’t part of the deal.

Later, they sat having their breakfast in silence. She was trained not to speak until spoken to but the stillness made her restless.

“So you have a meeting this morning?” she asked.

“Hmmm… I cancelled it.”

She faintly nodded her and didn’t ask for an explanation.

“Do you sometimes feel that nothing makes sense? That you have everything and still nothing? That you are in a prison?”

She didn’t answer. She understood they were rhetorical questions and that he wanted to continue talking. She had met his kind before too. Only they were much older than him. He looked like he was in his late twenties.

“There is void, a gaping hole and I don’t know what to fill it with.”

That’s your soul dying. She wanted to say. But she bit her lip. What would he know about it anyway? Her’s had died inch-by-inch, man-by-man. She knew what an empty soul meant. She wanted to scorn him, but his sad eyes and her paycheck, which she was to receive after three days, strained her to keep those thoughts in check.


“For once, I don’t want the money, the riches, the fame. I want to be the man on the street – who has his daily struggles.”

He was running his hands through his hair, sitting cross legged on the bed.

“Let’s get out of here,” suddenly he said.

”But where?” she looked at him uncertainly.

“I don’t know. Wherever the road takes us.”

The morning rays of sun were becoming stronger, the sky in colours of marigold and cerulean turning into sunflower yellow and lighter hues of blue. Somewhere in the background she could hear honking cars and temple bells.


To be continued...

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This is the first part of a fiction story with a four part series. Stay tuned!