Deceptions.

In that great, gabled country home with its Flemish brick façade and trimmed privet, Kiara lay on a giant, soft bed beside Jose, agitated and sleepless. Her fingertips explored the distinguished line of his neck; his eyes; his cheekbones. She kissed his hair, remembering a word Jose had mentioned earlier: closure. She gathered it meant peaceful resolution of the past. The infinite possibilities of the word enthralled her, but its reality, difficult and gangly, left her disappointed. She had abandoned Dehradun and come to Delhi to be rid of her past. In that big city, she had fallen in love, and in friendship. She was in love with Sam, a man of regal stature and her boss. A perfect bachelor, he had swept Kiara off her feet. She had been head over heels for him only to realize later how he had been using her, all the while, for pleasure while his family planned a big, fat wedding with a rich tycoon’s daughter. When the world had exploded in her face, she had fled to Spain, to grow anew a skin that had been peeled by what she had secretly come to think of as ‘strange events of Delhi’.

Now she lay listening to the glacial wind hammer the leafless firework of ivy against the window and the Labradors snore outside the bedroom door. This life was entirely unlike that which she had known, but its unfamiliarity did not divest her of the affinity she continued to feel for Delhi; in fact, if anything, it seemed to solidify her resolve to return.

She tilted herself on her side, closer towards Jose, and put her head on his chest. She had started to love him and knowing this broke her heart. Shutting her eyes, she could see the buildings, and vehicles racing, she could see the deer park’s lake, the leafless trees and marigolds floating upon its dirty, chartreuse waters; she could hear the aluminium canisters rattle on Atlas cycles manned by absurdly athletic milkmen. She believed she could now go back to Delhi although it was nothing more than a catalog of her failures. Because some people were meant to shepherd you to different shores, and some people brought you back to familiar ones.

She kissed Jose, feeling grateful. He had been her shelter in the cold country. Jose woke up and kissed her. She responded quickly. His tongue moved from her mouth to her neck, travelling down her chest, her navel, hipbone, seeking scholarship of her body. But if he knew she was thinking of leaving him, of returning to India, to Delhi, what would he say? Would he hit her? Would he turn away, dress up and walk out? Or would he laugh and go back to sleep?

Perhaps Sam had been the same way, committing treacheries within kisses, and so now she passed on the deceptions she had received.