Read The First Time (Love in No Time #1) for Free Online Page B

doors down from my parents’ home. What about the apartment in Vasant Kunj? My friends won’t mind, would they? But mind what? What am I thinking here? Damn, he has me thinking everything wrong, all wrong. I need some clarity here; some focus on whatever will change the direction of my bad, bad thoughts.
    “Ms. Sharma, you are very quiet. I will assume that you are feeling a little lost right now. Sorry if I am the reason you are feeling lost. But I would really like to talk about all this in person, not over the phone. How about I take you out for dinner or lunch even if you can get away from work for an hour or so? Sometime this week?”
    I am still very quiet. I feel if I move or even make a sound I might give myself away—my reluctant desires are creeping to the surface and I am afraid, kind of ready to explode. Before I resort to my usual practice of dropping receivers into their cradles before a formal bye, my mouth says, “Yes, I can do lunch. Let me know where and when.”
    I say in my most nonchalant voice. I am anything but nonchalant at this point. He has certainly accelerated the pace on my unarticulated but clumsily projected desire in unexciting locomotives. He is now setting the terms for negotiating how to requite this desire, his and mine, in a mutually satisfactory way. Okay! Bring it on. I am excited now. I am bubbling. I am recognizing the concept called hormones-in-overdrive. I like control but hormonal disarray is feeling really fine today.
    “Ms. Sharma, I look forward to it. Pleasure talking with you today and hope your evening is a pleasant one.”
    “I wish you a good evening too, kind Sir.”
    “I mean it Ms. Sharma—pleasure—think about it and may I say, think about me . . .?” I draw in a short, sharp breath and I hear a click on the other end. He has hung up on me!
    The words are hanging in virtual space between the two landlines and in my ear. I lean against my bedroom door. I know I am on a road where there is no U-turn. And if there is a cliff at the end, I am going over.
    I know I am hurtling and that generally involves hurting in the end. But when you are hurtling you are hurtling—there is no thought, no feeling, nothing—there is of course no consequence either. Even when you know there is a severe kind of hurting that is coming soon, you still hurtle, full speed ahead.
    I am my worst enemy.
    I know this too.
    Knowing me, I was going to keep him in my head, keep repeating his words in my head to the point that these make no sense.
    And when these words make no sense, my emotions will change from happy to angry. I will rant and rave in my head about strange boys with seductive powers they had no business acquiring and then using on unsuspecting little girls in small places.
    Yes, I can go from simple to bizarre in a matter of hours. I am a saboteur of me.
    I think I need tea with lots and lots of ginger in it. I need a toast too with lots and lots of Amul cheese spread on it. So I make tea and lather my toast. I decide I need time away from work. I decide I need to watch TV mindlessly and maybe read a harlequin romance. Yes, I am in that kind of mood. He has rendered me physically and emotionally listless. I think I will need my energy for our meeting that I know will change everything.

Chapter Eight
     
    I wake up to the sound of “Piya Bawari.” Shubha Mudgal is love-mad and she is telling you she is, rather forcefully. All her angst poured into her massive voice that even at low decibel ricochets off concrete walls and seeps deep into your being. Too bad if you don’t want to know that she is love-mad. There is only her want and damn if she couldn’t be wanton about it.
    “Sing it, Shubha. Mean it, girl” I say to her as I lay in my very dark room under my white sheets smelling of new lime scented Surf detergent. I really should just lie here. What time is it anyway? I cock my head to the side table beside my Dunlop mattress. The clock shows 8:23 a.m.—oh, no! 8:23