‘How I would have loved to mother your child,’ she said, disappointed herself. ‘But I feel it won’t be fair to Sathyam.’
‘I value your sensitivity,’ he said, as his face lighted. ‘I’m proud to be your lover.’
‘But having longed for each other for so long now,’ she said on second thoughts, ‘tonight is an exception to everything. If you catch my egg on the sly, I’ll look the other way, but from tomorrow its all condoms.’
‘I have the full measure of your love now,’ he said kissing her in ecstasy.
‘Take a shot and get it right,’ she spread herself, as though to keep her word.
‘I’m sure,’ he said as he engaged her, ‘I would be disappointed if I fail to father your child.’
‘In a way,’ said Roopa, ‘I’m caught in a cleft as you know.’
‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘let that not bother us.’
‘It looks like life draws the limits even for its own fulfillment,’ she said.
‘Perhaps,’ he said seemingly reconciled to the limitations of their love life, ‘it makes sense to live within those limits.’
‘I think it’s time we rest.’ he said, yawning,
‘Mate,’ she said going all over him, ‘let’s make it once more to match the date on which we met.’
Before exhaustion pushed them into a fulfilled sleep, that night, the light was on until it was about to dawn. It’s a unique feature of life in that, a fulfilling moment, while surmounting a mountain of miseries, obliterates the nightmares of the past.