Raw Desire

Bits and pieces of his heart

Suddenly Ruben chuckled.

"You know, sometimes she would wake up at 2 am in the morning, violently wake me up, and then force me to bring her ice-cream from a cafe near our place. Then I started to stock up on those ice-creams so I wouldn't have to wake up the old woman who ran the cafe. But Ruth would always ask for a flavour that we did not think she would ever ask for. And when I filled our refrigerator with all possible flavours,  she started craving for brownies instead of ice-creams."

Amairah smiled tenderly at the affection in his eyes.

He continued, "She always used to say that it was my fault that her baby was so unpredictable. Like father like son. This would always begin a fight among us, because I wished we had a daughter,  while she kept addressing our baby as a son. Soon the doctor told us that we were having a daughter, and that day I threw a huge party. Ruth was glowing that day. She was always beautiful,  but on the day of that party,  I fell in love with her again, and much deeper this time."

Amairah did not realise this, but at this point,  she was crying, not holding back anything, just crying. Her body was shaking due to the force of the sobs and she made no effort to hide her tears. Ruben, who had averted his eyes to hide his tears, looked up to see a broken Amairah. She was breaking more and more with each sob. Before he knew what he was doing, he moved towards her and wrapped his arms around her shoulders,  so she kept her head on his shoulder and cried.

After a while, she realised the position they were in, composed herself and straightened herself, adding a little distance between the two. Ruben dropped his arms and looked at her, confusion painted clearly on his face.

"Sorry", Amairah spoke up. "I know you did not come here to console a prostitute. I, just, I mean, I am sorry."

"What you are doing is also technically not a part of your job. But you still are listening. Tell me, what is it? I am sure it was not entirely because of what I had been saying." Ruben said.

Amairah delibrated for a moment,  but then she thought, if he can pour his heart out to her, then why can't she share this minor detail.

So she told him,"You had everything I ever wanted. Every single thing. I always thought my loss was huge, because I know I can never have what I want. But I just realised,  that life is a much greater punishment for you than it ever will be for me. I have hardly tasted crumbs of what I want, while you had the chance to indulge in it. You know what it feels like to feel complete, and then loose everything. I just have been empty for so long that I don't even remember what it is like to be complete."

She paused to inhale, and then continued,"It is not like my loss is less painful, but time has taught me to bear it. This was a torturous journey for me, where I came to terms with my past. In you I see myself, when i had only begun what proved to be a long and agonizing journey, which you would probably prefer to be alone in. And worst of all, you will have no choice but to live through it all."                  

He then sighed and took a long breath, as if testing if he was still alive. Loosing his child was devastating, heart wrenching, and surely made his existance a punishment where his own body was his cage. But loosing the love of his life too, at such a time, crushed him, and made him feel things that no combination of twenty six alphabets could describe. He had lost what he thought was his only chance of ever having a family. Ruth was someone who he could easily see himself spending the rest of his life with. He wanted her to be his forever.

"She set the standards so high, gave me so much of herself, and loved me so passionately that I refuses to believe that any other woman is capable of anything like it. I simply do not want to give her place to anybody else. It is like a sacred place in my heart which no one but her can occupy. So yeah, I will have to  go through this journey alone"

"What was loosing her like?"

Amairah wanted to bang her head in the wall and then bleed to her death. Who the hell in their right minds asks a question like this from a man whose thought process is so clearly depicted on the lines of his face?

Ruben gave another one of his humorless laughs at this. "It was like God was, actually, still is mocking me. He offered me supreme happiness, everything I had ever dreamt of and the only thing missing from my life. He gave me a slight glimpse of it, so I knew what I was being offered. But as soon as I extended my arm to accept it, he snatched his hand away. Of course, with that, he also took away whatever I had before I gave in to the temptation that he had offered me."

Amairah just could not stop her tears. It did not matter anymore that she is a call girl and he was her customer.All she could see wass, too much pain, too much suffering, all packed in just one man. This man who was brave enough to function even though he was carrying a powdered heart.

"No,I am not brave, and I do not want you to think of me as that either. Brave is the last thing that I would call myself." Ruben suddenly interrupted

"Did I say it out loud?"

Ruben gave her a small smile," No, but it is not hard to tell if I consider what you said to me earlier. As I already knew, you too have seen a lot of pain in life and while I wear my pain on my face and in my body language, you try to hide it in your eyes while continuing with your life."

"My suffering is different. I have learnt to live with it. Maybe because I am aware that nothing that happens to me, no matter how good or how bad, can take this emptiness away from me."

Suddenly, Ruben's phone beeped. He took one look at it and looked up at her apologetically." I am so sorry. Even though I really want to stay and listen to you, I must rush right now. But I will come back soon and we can continue from here."

With this he tuned around left, without listenting to anything that Amairah might have to say.

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