Pillow Talk

By Subhadip Chakraborty

“I think the only worthy way to sleep is when you have your arms around somebody you love.”

“Whatever happened to not using the ‘L’ word around here”

“Oh, you,” he smirked as he wrapped his arms around her and nuzzled, “who said anything about you, you little narcissistic munchkin.”

She giggled as he smothered her face and neck with kisses. They lay beneath the sheets in a comfy sofa that had been turned to a makeshift bed in his studio apartment on the 17th floor of a high-rise tower. The foggy huge archaic glass window beside which they snuggled opened up to a drenched city drowning in torrential rains. The pitter patter of the rain clenching its fists against the windowpane while thunder and the orchestra of the winds created havoc in the maximum city, he kissed her lips again, trying to hold on to every inch of hers.

“See, this is what you do, little mind games of yours, say a subtle cute little thing and quickly pair it up with your absolutely obnoxious humour,” she made a face.

“What can I say, you are my personal anomaly”

He kissed her along the lines of her rib cage and her navel as he went down. She moaned while her sounds got muted as a record from ‘cigarettes after sex’ played by the table on the corner of his dimly lit room. She held him close and hugged him, her eyes closed and breathing lightly.

“Sex is overrated,” he whispered nestling, “cuddling is hands down the best that nights have to offer.”

“Well, I like to think of sex as the ultimate high of the night, like doing shots at the end of the party. Those little pegs let you in on an entirely different level of losing control. It’s like,”

She turned around and lay facing him on his side of the little clingy bed, her eyes piercing away at his, “You promise not to complicate it right.”

He looked at her breath-taking kohl eyes, her pastel flawless complexion, tufts of wavy hair falling on to her forehead drenched in sweat and her lips, quivering with half a smile and a whole lot of trepidation as she looked back at him inquisitively.

“I couldn’t even if I wanted to.”

She beamed with her natural effortless smile as she rested her head on his chest, her eyes on the smoky window.

“This has just been a one-night slip under the influence of a lot of alcohol and some recreational herbs.”

“Yes, drugs were definitely involved,” he wondered out aloud, smirking, “But don’t just blame it on the intoxicants. This has a lot to do with your exceptionally bad taste in men, always been.”

She smirked, “I knew you would aim below the belt and take pot-shots at my exes the moment you got a chance.”

“Hey, I just took one for the team.”

“God this was crazy, wasn’t it,” she looked at him for acknowledgment and he beamed, “I mean one minute we were talking architecture and your love for décor and the next thing, I could taste you on my lips.”

“You make it sound like I coaxed you into this,” he rolled his eyes, his face glinting with the afterglow.

“oh of course you did. No way in hell did I have the faintest clue that a nightcap with my best friend would lead to breakfast in bed.”

“well, do you regret it,” he asked tentatively.

“um,” she bit her lip and cocked her head feigning deep thinking, “I don’t know yet. I will probably know tomorrow, the walk of shame ought to put some sense into my horny head.”

They lay quietly, relaxed in each other’s presence, cosying upto each other.

He could hear her heart beats, smell the Chanel five that she would always wear to office. Her face so close, he could see the tiny freckles in her face and the soft lines around her eyes, the little blemishes and a lone eye lash that lay carelessly around her cheekbone.

“Is something the matter,” he could always tell when she was worrying, she would stare into nothingness with beady blank eyes, hardly blinking.

“I can’t help but wonder if the rest of the group got to know, that you and I have somehow gotten ourselves into this awkward situation, how would they react.”

“They’ll lose it completely. But come around soon,” he smiled thinking of their reactions, the astonished faces, some laden with outright revolt while others, snorting and giggling silly. He wished he could hold her hand at the cafeteria, eating sunny side ups and sipping onto the morning tea as they cribbed about work with the group. It made him strangely elated, like he had always wanted to do it without ever realising, ever since he had seen her for the first time. He then wondered if he really wanted to share the acceptance of this moment with the world though, he worried if they’d ruin the inestimable beauty this moment encapsulated. Would they keep it a secret then, a concealed love affair, it felt extraordinary to even consider the possibility.

“I am gonna say it’s your fault,” she chuckled.

“Of course,” he rolled his eyes as he smiled all accepting, “Everything always has to be my fault.”

“Always, it’s the golden rule. That time when we missed our morning meeting cause you won’t take the train and only the cab, that one time when I puked in my granny’s place because you had made me try your stupid cocktails that had lemon syrup in them and the one time when in new year’s party, we missed the stand-up performance all because you had forgotten to pack your suit, it’s always been your fault.”

He looked at her, baffled at the detailed descriptions as she made a smug face.

“Wow, you’ve been making mental notes all this time lady, haven’t you!”

“Oh yes, you don’t think I spend all my breaks and evenings without judging you left, right and centre.”

He patted her head lovingly, “And all this while I thought you were a stunted reticent little wallflower.”

She pushed him away making a face and smiling. They lay there as he looked at the ceiling, memories of old times enveloping his mind. He remembered looking over his shoulder at her on new year’s party in office, dancing with her. She wore a little black dress and her bangs covered her left eye as she smiled at him from the dance floor, holding onto beers and serenading the audience with her silly dance moves. She had gotten pretty inebriated towards the end of the party and had asked him to chaperone her back to her place.

They were sitting in the taxi, as it moved through the silent nights of the city, faint lights blurring past them, hazy, luminous, as she held on to his hands, her eyes dwindling out of focus. The salty humid air of the night and her beauty felt stunning to him and he couldn’t help but stare. They were five minutes out from the destination, when she eventually opened her eyes.

Then she looked at him, and it felt like they saw each other for the first time.

“Well then, why did you not go out with me all this time,” he said, “I am starting to assume you must’ve noticed my frail attempts at taking you out for dinners and talking about love and the things we had in common. Did you intentionally push me away all this while.”

It was a tiny fleeting glimpse, but he could see her think it through, caught in the middle, trying to phrase the right sentences.

“Hey it’s me,” he nudged her, “You could tell me you know, the truth, sincere and ruthless.”

She looked at him, with palpable reluctance and yet definitive resilience, “I just never felt you were my type.”

He nodded, his expression, incorrigible as she tried to look through.

“Do you remember the first time we met,” she asked him curiously, as if reading the room.

“Yeah,” he smiled, “we were sitting on that oval conference room, weren’t we? I remember you sat the farthest, quiet and cold, your eyes shy and sincere, I couldn’t help think you were this obedient straight-A kinda good girl.”

She chuckled, “Appearances can be deceiving. I found you cocky and overtly pretentious at first. You give off the worst first impression you know.”

They laughed at this.

“But then,” she continued, her face had a hint of fondness, “It all changed that one time. You remember the time we went to catch a late-night movie after a couple of drinks on a weekend because it was Christmas and it was literally the only two of us from our office who were in town.”

“Yeah,” he nodded, “that plus all the persuasion on my end. I thought you’d never show.”

“Well I wasn’t gonna come, I have always had my doubts about your true intentions,” she made a face and he looked mopey, “oh just lighten up, I literally am in your arms right now.”

He looked at her with that face again that made his heart skip a beat.

“So, that night after the movie, we sat by the steps of the closed shopping centre, sipping onto teas and talking. I had always seen you so verbose, quipping, cracking jokes, going on ceaseless rants, and yet there you were, quiet and listening intently to me as I kept rambling. I think we lost track of time and you never looked even slightly perturbed. In fact, you seemed so happy. I found you cute for the first time that night.”

His face revelled with a similar expression that he had held that night and she could see the threads of affection he held for her, clearer than ever. She could feel the sinking feeling again.

“You know I was really sad before you came along,” she said, her eyes distant and despondent.

He could tell that she was confiding in him and he stroked her hair gently gazing at those hazel eyes.

“I felt lost here, I had never been away from home like this before you know,” she tried to explain and he nodded softly in understanding, “And then I met you. And you took all my sorrows and made them into paper planes. Your stupidity and hopeless overtures have been outraging and everything I needed. I don’t ever want to ruin what we have, you are my secret keeper and I might lose myself..,” she sighed, “if I were to lose you.”

He knew what she meant, he could see her dilemma. He kissed her forehead, “I am your best friend and come tomorrow, when you’ve had your walk of shame,” he winked at her, “and when you head’s no more horny, I shall await your answer, and you would still have me, either ways.”

“You promise,” she looked at him purposefully.

He hugged her again, maybe it was the realisation that he had a solid chance of losing her that made him hold onto her body, soaking in its ethereal enigma, her intimacy was magic to him and he knew at this moment, that she had not yet fallen in love with him the way he had.

He didn’t want to win her. He felt as if he had known it all along, that she had been different for him. His love for her held no conditions, no expectations. It was as if the moment he first fell for her that night on new year’s night, he had resigned his fate to the stars. It had never been a matter of getting her but cherishing every moment he could witness her, in all her weirdness and eccentricities, in her best and worst. He wasn’t insecure, it would indeed be a miracle if she were to ever spare her heart for the likes of him and he just looked at her like a boy staring at the moon, its divinity spellbinding him.

“You know you are the best thing that ever happened to a boy in the maximum city,” he confessed, “Ever since I saw you, I wanted to be in your good graces. I was punch drunk and looking for a story, a do over, and then you walked along.”

“Would you write about me, some day?,” she asked.

“I fear my words won’t do this moment justice,” he conceded.

“I’ve read your works,” she said slowly, “I know you are a big fan of sad endings.”

“Maybe not this once,” he looked at her, “Maybe this time, when the end gets overbearing and hard for me, I’ll just refuse to write it down.”

“what do you mean?,” she said.

“If I were to ever write of you and if it were after I had lost you,” he hugged her and whispered in her ears, “I’ll just end the story abruptly, in a different place but not the conclusion.”

She hugged him back. They closed their eyes and yet he stayed awake, as her lips trembled lost in dreams, he looked at her and knew that no sleep was worth missing her enchantment, that he held his dream right in his arms.

Sunday was a dull affair. He stayed cooped up in his apartment watching reruns of friends and reading ‘to kill a mocking bird’ as it rained relentlessly. She had not called or texted since she had left in the morning and he avoided checking his phone every ten minutes.

Monday morning as he sat at the cafeteria, waiting for her while sipping onto black tea, he saw her. There was that look again and he knew the end.

And so, as she started walking towards him, this story changes.

He is back in the taxi on new year’s night, five minutes away from her home.

She is inebriated, and yet as her eyes find him and settles in his, they look calm and content.

“Who do you think looked the most amazing tonight at the party,” she asks of him, thinking he’ll mostly mention the tens of crushes he has had in office since they joined.

And for the first time, he cannot help but accept the truth that his heart seemed to have registered the first time they met.

“You,” he tells her, “It’s always been you.”

By Subhadip Chakraborty