Fools in Love

"We are all fools in love"
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
With his back against the headboard, his Macbook on his lap he pretends to be working while secretly he keeps a track of his wife' movements from the corner of his eye.
A smirk creeps up on his face as he sees her tidying up their already neat and tidy room, leaving from time to time to assist his mother, Neelu, Ruhi, Simi, her Amma, Mihika - anyone and everyone with the most trivial things. She insists on helping them even when they do not ask it of her.
If he was not enjoying the paranoia she has right now, he would have taken pity on her, would have let her bow down gracefully but he cannot do that. He is enjoying this - a LOT.
He has her right where he wants her. And he is enjoying each and every second of it.
His wife is a bundle of nerves, it is apparent to him even when she is being her usual self. He has to hand it to the woman though; she has an excellent poker face. No one, no one apart from him even knows what is going on in her head right this moment and he cannot help the smile that creeps on his face at that.
Something about her makes the devil within him come to the fore - the kind that likes to play with its prey before it devours it.
She really had it right when she named him Raavan Kumar he muses, watching her plight he almost wants to pity her but does not and he is sure only a devil can be so wicked.
She may think she is good, great even but he is excellent and nothing beats excellence. He sees through her sneaky little devilish mind and hence keeps on playing his part with aplomb with a poker face that rivals her own, the mask only slipping when she is not looking his way. He has slipped only once and she can blame him for laughing at her, though he could read it in her eyes she wanted to strangle him or perhaps fling a shoe at him when he did that.
However, the stars are favoring him it seems for his excuse to laugh was courtesy of the one person with whom Ishita can never be angry - their darling little daughter Ruhi. In her nervousness or in a bid to buy some time his wife' brain became so muddled she didn't really think when she asked Ruhi to brush her teeth before going to the bed - for the third time in the night.
The first time Ruhi was happy to oblige, her habit instilled by Ishita post their marriage of brushing twice a day did not make it seem to her anything was out of the ordinary when her Ishimaa came to her and stood by her making sure she brushed the right way after dinner.
The second time Ishita gave Ruhi milk and his daughter blurted out she does not want to have it as her mouth still tastes of the chocolate she got from her Mihika chitti and the milk will just spoil it. When Ishita had asked her when she got the chocolate in her innocence Ruhi had uttered after she saw Chitti and Mihir Chachu together just some time before. She had went to her Patti' to wish them a good night before bedtime and caught her chachu kissing her chitti on the cheek, post which the couple had seemed to spot her and Mihika had punched Mihir on the arm for not looking out.
She had been given the chocolate her chachu had just given to her chitti and been asked to not tell anyone she saw anything.
His little daughter had kept her word too until the revulsion she felt at being compelled to drink the milk her Ishimaa got her made her spill the truth.
Begrudgingly Ruhi had no other option than to comply to her Ishimaa' orders and brush again for the second time in the night within the span of half an hour
He could not favor his daughter when she protested and pleaded with him when Ishita spoke of cavities and painful dental procedures, he has seen Ruhi cry once in the middle of the night with a bad toothache and he does not want his little girl to go through that kind of pain again. Though now that he remembers that night, he cannot really say it is a bad memory - he met her for the first time then or should he say it was the first time they really looked at each other, were introduced to each other and had their first conversation. He had bumped into her before that night, had borrowed a newspaper her father read but they had not conversed much and he had not paid any attention to her.
He had been musing about the night he had heard her voice for the first time in the dark and later had watched her walking away as she was rushing out to attend to some child in pain and her words had influenced his thoughts as he had allowed an employee of his some leeway when he had heard Ruhi.
"Ishimaa how many times will you make me brush tonight I already brushed twice? My teeth would fall off if I brush so much even before they are meant too."
The way Ruhi had scrunched her nose had made his daughter look adorable and his wife had looked like a kid caught with her hand down a candy jar, as she realized what Ruhi had said was the truth. She had then bent down and got on her knees to Ruhi' level and apologized.
"Ru, I am sorry baby Ishimaa forgot you have brushed already."
"Are you worried about something Ishimaa?"
His sweet little, intelligent daughter had immediately been concerned for her mother.  Taking her mother' face in her hands she had asked the question. With a smile on her face, Ishita had kissed both of Ruhi' palms and enveloped her in a bear hug.
"No my baby Ishimaa is perfectly fine, don't you worry."
"Then how and why did you forget I had already brushed? You never forget things. Is there something different about tonight?"
The child spoke the last words in innocence but he had been unable to hold back the little peel of laughter as they were spoken particularly because of the horror on his wife' face, the classic deer caught in the headlights expression coming on to it.
She had looked his way then and he had to stifle the laugh as she had taken Ruhi in her arms and walked out of the room after that.
It has been twenty minutes to that and she came back barely a minute or two ago after putting Ruhi to bed. Immediately she started cleaning the TV unit and placing things in the drawers. She caught him looking at her when she was cleaning up the dressing table after that as she turned around.
He merely met her eye for a couple of moments and then looked back at his screen as if getting back to work and she had resumed her work. In silence he saw as she went towards the cupboard at last and took the longest time as she stood before it and heard her let out an exhale as she picked her favorite green Kurti and a pair of white leggings to change for the night.
Giving him one last look from the corner of her eye, his wife left the room and he could not help but have a smirk even has he mentally patted his back.
She really has no other option now, he thought to himself.
So now, he waits patiently for his wife to come to their room, to him and to their bed like a predator.
Their bed, he repeats the words in his head and likes the sound of those.
He runs his hand over the other empty side of the bed as he looks at it fondly for a second as his mind wanders over the events of the past days and years all at once.
A woman used to share this bed with him long ago, the woman he loved madly, who had been his wife once upon a time, who gave birth to his children and who turned his heart to stone with her betrayal.
Post her deceit, he had vowed to himself he would only live for revenge now. No other thoughts or emotions would have a place in his life. Nothing less than success and victory would satisfy him.
He set out on the path with that one goal in mind and never looked back. In the span of five short years, he scaled the heights of success that left one and all marveling.
He rose like a phoenix from the ashes and reached the heights of fame and fortune.
He spent his days working harder than he ever did before, never content with things, always wanting more. His nights though were filled with darkness and emptiness. He avoided coming home early in order to escape looking upon the face of his daughter who reminded him too much of her mother and the constant crying and cribbing of his own mother.
He returned home to a dark, silent home with his family asleep and turned in for the night in a cold bed after gorging on some cold food kept for him in the containers that he rarely if ever heated before consuming. He tried working as hard as he could to let exhaustion and fatigue wear him down so he would not notice the empty side of his bed and would fall asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow but failed many a times. The thoughts and images that would follow then would have him turning to the bottle for some relief.
From an occasional drinker he became a raging alcoholic just so that he could wash away the memories of the times he shared the bed with a woman who was now with another man. The rage, the repulsion that filled inside him as he imagined her with him - as his mind conjured images and thoughts of her moaning and sighing another man' name as he touched her - his wife - would not let him fall asleep until he had emptied the bottle and passed out from the effects of it.
He didn't want to ever allow someone again to hurt him like that, he had made his mind to spend the rest of his life all alone with only his revenge as his bedfellow and companion until she came in.
He had had no idea his return to Delhi would change his life, the course of it forever as within months of it he would remarry.
The need to remarry had arisen not out of a need for companion or because he wanted a partner for him, but because he had no other option and had wanted to keep the one person with him for whom he had not given up on his life and sanity - his Ruhi.
Slowly Ishita grew on him and he knows try as he might he cannot feign indifference towards the woman now.  He tried staying away from her, keeping her at an arm' length using rude words and mean tactics but nothing swayed her.
She bent and beat him into a new shape. She set him in a fresh mold with her smiles and laughter, by her care and concern, by her unending ability to give and her love for his daughter and family. Her warmth acted as the fire in the furnace that burnt away the negativity plaguing his life and mind. The light of her aura and smiles brightened up his dull, dark world.
Sometimes he wonders what he did to deserve her, her and his little Ruhi.
They make his life so beautiful; he never even knew it was a possibility until he finally gave up and gave in to their goodness. Defeat has never been sweeter for him.
His wife is an amazing woman; he cannot help but remember the words he had uttered to her once - about how it seems to him, they are made for each other and hence it did not work out for either of them with other people who came in their lives earlier.
She does seem to be the woman who was made just for him.
Only he cannot help feeling angry and frustrated with her at times, like he was recently for two nights in a row.
The first night was when suddenly their bed broke as he landed on it. His back was killing him and there she was asleep on a mattress peacefully while he tossed and turned on that couch, with a bad back.
It had annoyed him that she could be asleep when he could not even lie down peacefully uncomfortable on that small couch. 
The second was because she did something out of the ordinary, as always, only this time she went a little too far.
She brought home his ex, his drunk as hell ex at night to their home and later to their room and this very bed.
The anger and pain he had felt because of her, as his heart constricted in his chest at the sight of the woman in his bed is a memory he wishes he could erase from his mind.
He has known enough of the woman now to know her heart was in the right place but cannot help but be aghast sometimes at the sheerness of her goodness and the limits of her insanity.
He fears one day she would make him lose his mind for sure.
One woman might not do the trick but two cannot fail at the job he muses and laughs at himself.
He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath as his mind recalls how he had finally come up with a solution to their problems - his and hers.
He had wanted to erase every memory of his ex from this bed including the recent one and had figured the reason his well-intentioned, dumb wife had not even batted an eyelid before letting his ex into their room and on the bed was because...she hadn't considered it as theirs.  If the thought had entered her head that this is their bed, she would not have been as stupid as to put Shagun on it even if she had helped her out of her goodness and humanity that is second nature to her.
He had realized it that Ishita never laid a claim on it or even thought of the bed as theirs was because... she could not think of it as hers in the first place because of him. She has used it only when he has been away or when she was recently injured or when Ruhi sleeps in their room.
The night he had twisted her arm he had asked her to return to the couch and said the bed is his when she was about to use it.
He had kept her out of this bed and thus ensured...she does not think of it as hers, as theirs. He never knew things uttered without thought that night would come back to bite him in this twisted way.
Maybe karma had his bed breaking on the first night and later getting Shagun to land on it on the second one.
His sore back had made him wonder how Ishita had quietly used it for months without nigh a word of complaint of any discomfort or backache. Yes, he has used the couch too at times but to spend a night is not the same as to spend months on the confined small space in a row for days on end.
It had struck him perhaps he should ask her to sleep on the bed but had wondered if she would agree to him, his motives and misunderstand his gesture as some ruse, he came up with to get intimate with he - his fear of her reaction had made him decide against it too.
Only the next night he saw his past and present walk in together drenched and was too scandalized for words. He had been unable to sleep once he had asked Ishita to leave him alone and go to the room.
It was only around the crack of the dawn that sleep had come to him when his hysterical mind had finally understood how Ishita could allow Shagun to sleep on their bed.  It has struck him the bed was never theirs to begin with.
He expected her to behave like a wife, he behaved like a husband and while she took care of him and did abide all her duties as the ideal mother and daughter in law of his family, their relationship was still that of parents and friends.
They are not a couple in the truest sense of the term because of the various things keeping them apart.
Therefore, he decided while they cannot rush into things he knows both of them would be uncomfortable with, they had to start somewhere. The intimacy, the journey towards it he knows would need it is time for them. His wife is a wonderful woman, a beautiful woman and he knows he is attracted to her.
Their little escapade in the shower has assured him while he is not alone in this she is just as scared if not more.
He can give her the time she needs; he needs it too.
He hears a sneeze that snaps him out of his thoughts as he opens his eyes and sees his wife standing on the other side of the bed as she rubs her nose and looks anywhere but at him. His attention falls to the hand placed on her side of the bed, he looks at her and knows she is looking at him from under her lashes, smirks and pats the place twice before moving away his hand.
"Are you gonna be standing there all night long? Don't worry the bed won't bite you...neither would I."
Involuntarily her widened eyes land on him and he sees his casual remark has set the alarm bells ringing in her head. He has to admit, his panicked wife looks adorable.
He sees her gulp and has to stifle the urge to laugh; he understands what a big deal it is for her, for them. His nerves are not any better, only he is better at hiding his reactions than she is, if only she knew how hard his heart is thumping in his chest or his pulse racing he is sure she would bolt from the room or perhaps laugh at him. Neither is a reaction he can afford.
He has to take her edge off he knows it and so without even thinking through he speaks up the next words that has her looking daggers at him,
"Or are you worried how will you resist biting me huh? I mean we have shared this room for months now but on this bed, Ruhi has always been between us whenever we have slept on it together. Haw, I never realized my daughter was acting as my shield, my safety net all this time."  He ends with an expression of mock horror as he places a hand on his mouth.
"What? Don't talk nonsense."
"Nonsense, I am talking nonsense?"
"Yes you are."
"If I am talking nonsense ... you were thinking of ways to seduce me perhaps."
"I was thinking of no such things you horrible, incorrigible man!"
"Your face says otherwise."
"My face says nothing of that sort; it's the filth in your mind that is coming up with all these things."
"I don't believe it."
She finally puts her feet on the bed in her anger and looks angrily at him as she punches a pillow before replying to him.
"Fine, I'll prove it to you."
With the words, she turns away from him, pulls the comforter over her and lies down on the corner of the bed on what would be her side of it from now on.
She switches off the lights on her nightstand and speaks up,
"Switch off the lights of your lamp I have to wake up early tomorrow and the lights are bothering me."
Smiling he follows his wife' orders as his hand reaches out towards the switchboard even as unable to help himself he leans in close to her, balancing himself on an elbow just as she turns her face.
For a moment, his breath catches at the propinquity of their faces, affected by her breath fanning his face. His eyes involuntarily scan her face and linger for a long moment on her lips before looking at her again.
He whispers to her huskily unable to hide the affect she has on him, as his voice gives him away,
"I hope you don't make me regret my decision here Ishita, I would have you know how it took me so much faith and courage to invite you on this bed even when I know my honor is at stake."
"Very funny, if you were so scared maybe you should have thought things through before challenging me like that stupidly but don't worry nothing would happen to your honor. Only villains eye them, not heroines."
"Nothing better happen, I'll have you know else I would scream loudly and the entire family will be here in less than two minutes and this is the twenty-first century anything is possible, even the reverse... who knows a heroine might just attack a poor defenseless man."
"Don't you think you think too highly of yourself?"
"Nope, have you seen me? I am hot."
She rolls her eyes and turns around muttering a in your dreams when he asks her,
"What?"
"Good night Raman."
He continues to look at her for a while before finally lying down on his spot.
"Good night."
Pulling the comforter over himself, he recalls how just a few hours back he had dropped the bomb on his wife that has her finally sleeping on this bed besides him,
"Aiyyo Muruga, what is wrong with the furniture of this place?"
His wife had looked on at her couch, hers as she referred to it when he saw her standing forlornly near the TV unit when he had came in from the office.
"What happened?"
"My couch broke Raman, can't you see?"
He had looked upon the couch then and seen the left legs of the couch gave away. It was now titled in a funny angle on the right and had laughed.
"What? How can you laugh Raman? When your bed broke, you had been so angry and now when it's my couch you are laughing? So unfair, so mean of you how would I sleep now? That mattress is so small and hard on the back."
He had looked at her peculiarly then and in a deadpan delivered the line as if he were walking on a minefield.
"You can sleep on the bed."
She had looked at him with relief and spoken then,
"That's right... I would ask Ruhi to join us here for the night and get the couch repaired tomorrow. Better yet just, buy a new one the old furniture of this place seems to be getting useless anyways."
"I meant from now on Ishita."
The words had stopped her diatribe on the furniture and she had looked at him with what could be only described as amazement and horror.
"What?"
"Did you just say I should sleep on the bed from now on?"
"Not should, could... there is a difference."
"W...why?"  She had stammered the word.
"What do you mean by why? I was offering you the bed being a gentleman and you cannot even take that offer kindly? What kind of a woman are you?"
"I mean... why the now on?"
"Are you... do you think I have any ideas here? God... give a rest to that over-thinking dirty mind of yours. I just meant sleeping, as in closing your eyes and nothing else ...only you and that mind of yours only wander off in one direction as always."
She had looked scandalized,
"My mind is dirty? You are the one who made the offer need I remind you?"
"I perfectly remember the offer and I made it because I realized the damn couch has broken twice already since our marriage I pitied the poor thing and so decided to ask you to sleep on the bed. The only thing that is strong and durable enough to take your weight."
Her jaw had dropped on hearing those words as she had retorted,
"My weight, really ... I think someone is forgetting how his mere landing on the bed broke it recently."
"And someone knows it's all because your Amma hired a stupid carpenter who instead of Simi' bedroom came here and worked on the wrong bed. By the way I can see what is stopping you."
"Huh?"
"Afraid how you would resist me... I mean us all alone, each and every night in this room and my scintillating good looks would be too hard to resist for you if you sleep beside temptation daily?"
"Temptation, did you just refer yourself as temptation?" She had raised an eyebrow as she spoke.
"You are right, grammatical error. I mean I am temptation personified."
"I really am torn here between the urge to ask mummyji were you dropped on your head as a child and getting you a psych consult."
"Oh please... pfft... these are all excuses. You are just scared why don't you admit Matangi?"
"Don't call me that! and I am not scared of anything least of all you or ... the so-called temptation of sleeping beside you."
"Fine then you have to prove it."
"I will."
He has to congratulate himself at the stroke of his inspired genius that had made him call Amma and get the number of that carpenter to get the job on the couch done.  He had called his mother and asked her to let the carpenter in his room and then let him do the job on the couch and had made sure the man arrived during Ishita' clinic hours.
He smiles as he feels a surge of delight at the success of his plans unaware of his wife having a mirroring smile on his face, as she sleeps with her back to him.
She smiles as she is torn between being amused at her husband' antics and his concern for her.
He is not aware but following the night the bed broke, she had come to their room when he was looking in the cupboard for a pair of shades and watch that would go with the clothes his wife laid out for him for the day and she had heard him mutter to himself.
"My back ahhh...how does Ishita sleep on that damn couch daily and not complain? May be I should...her back has to trouble her too."
She had heard the words and quietly went outside, as she understood the meaning of what was left unsaid and wondered how he would approach her. She was torn between what this meant for them as a couple and whether she was ready for its implications.
However knowing the man who is her husband there was no doubt in her mind should he ask it of her what her answer would be - she trusts him completely and knows, if and when they cross that line it would only be when she is ready to take things to the next level between them. Raman would never force himself upon her.
She has been waiting for days now for him to speak up, but assumed post her bringing Shagun in the bed he had changed his mind. That night she had not thought much and hurt him a lot.
When he had spoken the words today in the evening of her sleeping on the bed and she had looked at the couch she had put two and two together and assumed her husband must have had a hand behind the sudden breaking of the couch. It was all right until the time she left for the clinic after all.
She wonders when this man would ever take a direct route to things instead of going around in circles and falls asleep with a smile on her face as he does the same too.
Come morning they wake up to the sound of her alarm now at her bedside table, instead of the center table by the couch.
Their eyes open to each other' faces the first thing in the morning and in their sleepy state they share soft smiles. They realize while they didn't move much in the night and are still in their corners of the bed, they turned sometime in the night in their sleep and faced each other to wake up to one another in the morning.
She sits up on the bed, stretches her arms after shutting of the alarm and stifles a yawn.
Looking at her husband who is trying to fall asleep again, she quietly says.
"I proved myself... I won."
It is when she leaves the room her not so sleepy husband looks at the doorway and says,
"Ishita... we both did. Only I am waiting for the day when we both loose."
The smile that creeps up on his face at the thought is contagious as he bites his lip and pulls the comforter over his head and tries to go back to sleep to dream some sweet dreams though he knows sleep is the last thing on his mind now.