Short Story: First Love

For three years now, Rajni had urged him for the story of his first love. But he always avoided narrating it.  This year took a different trajectory. He felt like opening up as some strange compulsion was building up within him, a force that tore apart his aversion.

The candle-light dinner on the rooftop was her idea to celebrate three years of their marriage. It served as the perfect rendezvous to discuss love. The incandescent glow of the candle lit up his face as he saw the mushy past rush into his own eyes. The rapid, restless forays of his eyeballs from one corner to another played the same intense game of pursuit he indulged in. Those moments were soft like jelly, slipping out of his grip like her hand that he tried to hold in the lashing rains. Drenched in the ambrosia of memories, Rajesh took the lead with a vengeance, to tell her all that ravaged him even today.

The appetizer of introductory narration whets the appetite for the main course. Rajesh captured Rajni’s imagination with his vivid tapestry of words. The start was clichéd with once-upon-a-time and he took a deep breath.

“I was madly in love with her, absolutely crazy when I look back now…”

 The strain of vagueness and completeness rolled into a single line made Rajni curious for more.

“What else to call it when you roam the streets looking for a cobbler with a sandal strap in your hand for more than two hours?”

“Did you finally get it fixed?” Rajni cut in.

 “No. But she was happy that I tried a lot,” Rajesh tried to hide his irritation.

  “She went home like that?”

  “No. Keep your questions reserved. Let me proceed with the love part first.”

  “Ok, ok, carry on.”

 Rajni took a sip of champagne and looked at his shy face that was trying to find anchorage in the inanimate objects on the laid-out table that seemed to have acquired a life of its own. The way he held the stem of the glass was akin to a passionate guy holding the slender waist of his lover. The way his lips brushed the rim was similar to the amorous encounter with the roseate lips of his first love.

“The day I first saw her in college I could not sleep at night. She mirrored my concept of beauty. I approached her for notes without knowing how good she was in studies. The boldest, wildest move from my side fetched an encouraging response, though she was not sure whether I would manage to decipher her illegible scrawl. It was less difficult than trying to understand a girl. I licked the words on her pages and made the wet ink bleed like my heart. The pages enriched with my saliva altered the shape of her words. I seasoned myself like this to perfection so that the real occasion turned sublime. She would also melt like her words on the pages under my smouldering gaze. The aftertaste of economics scaled up my ambition to enact the same with her soon. An opportunity came rather too soon when our eyes met and clashed with ferocity and entwined our lips in the dark corridors of the library floor. When the storm petered out after a few minutes, it left behind a trail of succulent destruction that we relished for the day, afraid of failure to repeat it with the same intensity again.”

“Any other sign of madness you can recollect?”

“There are several, not one or two. I went to college on Sundays, just for her.”

“Nuts! Did she have classes on holidays?”

 “She had her tuition class near the college, a few hundred metres away, and so I waited for her return, for hours at a stretch. One day she forgot about me, went home straight, and I waited for six hours outside the gate, till late in the evening.”

“Did you forgive her for that?”

 “Absolutely, her smile overpowered me before I could charge her. And she compensated for that with a pleasant surprise.”

“But it was madness nevertheless. You can’t do it today, can you?”

“Impossible. I can’t even think of waiting for six hours under a lamp post for someone.”

 “Ok, resume your love story, it’s getting interesting.” 

 Rajni popped a cherry in her mouth. 

“Winning her attention was easier than I had expected it to be. She never played hard to get. I think she was pretty clear about how she wanted the affair to continue and end. More clarity than what I had. When I first talked to her about the future, she broke into a hearty laugh. Usually, the girl is fond of commitment and here the case was just the opposite. She asked me if I was afraid of losing her.”

“And what did you say then?”

“I spoke the truth.”

 “And what was the truth?”

 “The fear part.”

 “So she agreed to discuss about you with her family within a couple of months of courtship.”

 “I was amazed at how she was able to judge me so fast.”

 “And you went to meet her parents?”

 “I did not need to do so. She brought her father to college one day and introduced us.”

 “Wow. Cool.”

 “And he did not grill me at all.”

 “Sorted in your favour. Smooth sailing.”

 “The problem actually began from my side. My father was stubborn.”

“Leave the struggle part as of now and tell me more about the romance bit.”

By this time, Rajni had journeyed quite far. She wanted him to focus on that aspect of his first love. With her hand on her chin, she sat and listened in rapt attention to his sweet recall. She wanted to hear the tiny bits that spiced up the love story. 

Rajesh resumed, deciding not to leave out the erotic passages he read out to her. How many kisses on the nape she made him count and how many attempts she made to chew his earlobe while he struggled to focus on reading. He did not hide his sensuous memories and shared everything. The embarrassing moments when he blundered to follow the instructions were recalled. His past stood bollock naked in front of Rajni. Her eyes glistened with rebellious love. Rajesh surrendered his senses to her timeless appeal.

This time, Rajni had a specific question in mind.

 “Did you ever try to understand why she picked you?”

 Rajesh went blank.

“Seriously, I never gave this a thought. Winning was everything.”

 “Did she ask why you chose her?”

  Rajesh slowed down to think deeply.

  “I said the usual stuff. Sexy, beautiful, smart, all that.”

   “Which is completely true indeed?”

   “I should have added more actually, her inner qualities.”

   “Perhaps you did not know then.”

    “Yeah, maybe. You’re right.”

    “In hindsight, what would you add to her list of qualities?”

    “Her humour, quick decision-making, and the ability to tackle every situation with ease.”

    “Okay, nice.” 

    “Her single quality made her strong, a bunch made her stronger.”

   “So you allowed fate to snatch her away?”

  Rajesh looked up with horror as she knew he feared fate more than death.

  “From my side, it was all over once my family said no.”

 “I was not strong like her, to be honest. She got a good job first. And I was still struggling to find one.”

 “The days of first love were numbered as she would come and say her family has fixed her match. I was mentally prepared to hear that.”

 “So you never thought of committing suicide for love?” Rajni pricked with sharpness.

 Rajesh found this most difficult to answer. It was not a simple question. A choice between the devil and the deep sea. He polished off the drink first to gather more strength.

 “Such depressing thoughts came to mind but I overcame those.”

 “So you loved life more than you loved her. You wanted a life without her. You were okay with it?”

 “Be practical, Rajni, do all jilted lovers commit suicide? Is that the right to do?”

 Rajesh ran out of patience this time. 

 “After hearing about your first love, it sounds you were a mad lover who could slash his wrist or jump into the river or lie down on the railway tracks.”

“I admit my first love did not have such dramatic thrills in the end.” 

 “Anyway, tell me what came out of it? What happened to her? And where is she now?”

 “She is happy in her life, with her man, in this world,” Rajesh answered with a strange serenity that unnerved Rajni.

The candle had reached its end and there was total darkness around. Rajesh made an attempt to get up and hold Rajni in his arms. He staggered and reached her and lifted her up and took her down the staircase, right inside the bedroom. He threw her on the bed and came crashing on her, whispered the answer to her last question, before opening those same roseate lips with the same wild energy he summoned in the corridors of the library floor. 

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By Devraj Singh Kalsi 

His stories have been published in The Bombay Review, Deccan Herald, Assam Tribune, Earthen Lamp Journal, Readomania.com, Storymirror.com, and The Statesman. He works as a copywriter in Kolkata. His first novel, Pal Motors, is getting published this year.

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