‘Won’t you get up my love?’ she crooned in his ears, as he stirred.
‘What’s the time like, darling?’ he asked drowsily.
‘It’s well past nine,’ she caressed his back, as he laid his head in her lap. ‘What about some bed-coffee.’
‘What a time we had Roopa!’ he said, enlacing her waist. ‘Oh, it’s like a dream come true, isn’t it?’
‘Now, I’m unable even to recollect my yesterday’s suffering,’ she whispered into his ears, as if to keep her feelings out of the earshot of her past. ‘How well you’ve wiped out my past with your magic wand!’
‘Promise you won’t desert me,’ he said earnestly. ‘Having got you, I would die if I were to lose you. How greedy you made me to devour your love! How I love to savor life with Sandhya and you.’
‘After all that waiting, do you think I’m mad to spoil my party?’ she said in all fulfillments. ‘I would be your Roopa Rao for the rest of my life. How our names match to make music!’
‘Oh, to the tune of our love,’ he pressed his self closer to her, ‘to enthrall our life.’
Having gone into the kitchen thereafter, she woke up to the surroundings, ‘Oh God, Yadamma could have come and gone, having got no response!’ she began to think. ‘Maybe, there was a load shedding before I got up. Or used as they were to our love-talk, her door knocks could have fallen on our deaf ears. But what would she infer finding him here tomorrow? I’ll tell her not to turn up for the next three days. But how am I to keep away Lalitha from peeping in? Well, I couldn’t care less about her. But isn’t discretion better part of valor? On and off, I should go to her myself to ensure that she wouldn’t come up calling on me. With that trespasser of a Prasad gone abroad, it would only leave Tara among the likely callers. Of course, it shouldn’t bother me even if she gets the scent of it. If anything, it’s welcome if she comes to knew of it, isn’t it? After all, won’t it feel nice if someone knows that I’m loved? Why not announce the arrival of my man to her?’
‘I was wondering,’ she said, serving him some coffee, ‘how we can carry on in the long run.’
‘Why worry, trust our passion for that,’ he said nonchalantly, ‘
‘How can we meet without getting noticed?’
‘Don’t I need a Personal Secretary,’ he said winking at her. ‘Shall I say more?’