‘Why not I wait till he advances,’ she thought having developed second thoughts about her own abashment. ‘Oh no, if I fail to lead him, won’t he take me to be a flirt and dismiss me forever? If I don’t let him have me now, I might as well forget about him in this life. Come what may, I shall grab this chance of a lifetime, now and here, with both hands at that. Won’t he keep me in his embrace as I lay there in coyness forever? Haven’t I suffered enough to deserve the solace of his love? Have I any stomach left for misery, anymore?’
When they sat for dinner, she served him silently as if the distraction of their conversation would hamper his eating. However, construing her contemplative mood as a proof of her embarrassment, he felt depressed at the tragedy of his own making.
When they rose from the table, sensing his predicament, she opened the gambit giving him pan, ‘I’m glad you’ve come home this time, did Sandhya prevail upon you?’
‘You know Sandhya is at Kakinada?’ he said as her words rekindled his hope. ‘I’ve come to see you.’
‘I’m flattered really,’ she said spreading her hands, ‘and I welcome you ever more for that.’
‘Tell me,’ finding her gesture inviting, he played his move, to probe her position.
‘About what?’ she feigned ignorance.
‘About you.’ he said lovingly.
‘Are you blind not to see it for yourself,’ she said coyly.
‘You look a little pulled down.’
‘Didn’t I tell you?’ she said, ‘I’m just pulling on.’
‘Sandhya wrote to me,’ he said hesitantly, ‘that you’re having a hard time.’
‘Do you think Sathyam’s neglect and Prasad’s pestering could bother me really,’ she said as though showing her cards. ‘They are just allergies. But my ailment is different.’
‘May I know,’ he said sensing her mood, ‘if it’s not personal.’
‘I always thought,’ she said coyly, ‘that you knew it well.’
‘But then,’ he said with rising hope, ‘can one conclude from his own diagnosis.’
‘Why not take a second opinion?’ she said as if she were begging to be asked by him.
‘Tell me then,’ he said to reach out for the approaching moment.
‘Didn’t you hear my body language!’ she said.
‘But still..’ he was at a loss how to respond.
‘Maybe you need even more privacy to express yourself,’ she said as she went into the bedroom in apparent invitation for him to cross the threshold
‘Thank God, my fears seem to be liars,’ he felt ecstatic. ‘Is she not expecting me to break the ice and thaw it out? Why, hasn’t she left enough hints already about that? After all her advances, does it make any sense for me to hold back now? Oh, in the entire path of love, the steps that lead up to sex are the most slippery, one false step and it could make man slip out of woman’s favor, forever. All the same, if he were not to venture, how could it ever result in an adventure? What else a lover could do than to enter into his beloved’s orbit of familiarity? Then, won’t she suck him into the arena of her favors? Where else one can find a better jaunt for that than the precincts of her bedroom?’