The Boundaries of Love

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A loud thunderclap and I almost jump out of my skin. The story I am editing now,  is a paranormal thriller where a ghost has been haunting a girl whom he had once loved. What a cliched! Being a story editor, you cannot choose which story to edit. But I have to admit, this thriller is far better than those stupid romantic stories where the male leads are obnoxious enough to beat their chest and claim the females as ‘mine’. Dude! We women love love. Love us unconditionally and we will happily say ‘Yours always’. 

NEW AGE PUBLICATIONS. The publication house I work for, is a great place to work. Good environment. Great colleagues. No office politics! Our boss, Mrs Nirmala Malhotra is the one who reads and decides which story the publication house is going to publish. She reads the manuscripts, and trust me, she reads almost hundreds of them per day. How that old lady who is in her early sixties manages to read that much in a day is something about which I have zero idea. Not to forget those romantic stories, in which most female leads manage to reach orgasm more than ten times during the so called ‘hot sex scenes’. My submission date is tomorrow. And Mrs Malhotra herself reads the edited manuscripts again. So she reads those sex scenes again! 

The girl wanted to scream. She was sure she saw someone standing there just a minute ago.  But now that she turned to look, there was no one, as if . . .

A piercing whistle shrills through the night air and I gasp. That's my phone. I look at it with a frown. How come the ring tone is . . . Oh my! Of course! Dabbu, my nephew, he was playing on my phone in the evening. He must have showed his engineering skills on my phone once again. 

I bend from the couch to pick up the phone placed on the table. Mrs Malhotra, at this time?

 "Hello?" 

"Suman! I am sorry, I called you so late." She sighs.

"It's okay Mam!" I say, tilting my head, to hold the phone in between my ear and shoulder. She sighs again. Mrs Malhotra is one of those people who never cares about the world; always happy and smiling. But right now the way she sounds, I had to ask, "Are you okay, Mam?" 

She sighs again, “Yes, I am fine.” She pauses for a minute, “Actually I was thinking, if you could come to my house tomorrow with the edited manuscripts."

"Your house?" 

"Oh, I am not well so I won't be able to meet you at the office. I have asked Rajesh too, he is coming tomorrow with his work at 5PM." She says. And I almost laugh out loud, she has this weird habit of saying AM or PM. Once she had told me;it helps people to understand better this way, rather than saying in the morning or in the evening. And I still have not understood why and how!

"But I have some prior commitments . . . I mean is it okay if I come there after 7 in the evening?"

"I have no problem with that. Please do come. I'll be waiting then." She sighs again. 

What's with so much of sighing! "Mam, are you sure you are okay? I mean can I help you with something that's bothering you?" 

"No Suman, I am fine." She laughs, "Anyways, thank you for asking!" 

***

Goodness! I am standing in front of a huge gate, with security personnel all around. Now I understand why my colleagues say the Malhotras are actually super rich. I look down at my attire. A bright yellow kurti and brown leggings, which totally mismatch. Excellent! 

One of the security person asks me about my name, while I stood there awkwardly. Nodding into the phone, he asks me to go inside. The house err . . . the mansion itself is bigger than any three star hotel, suddenly it looks like I shouldn't have been here. Shrugging off the feeling, I go inside, the main door is open. Of course. You don't need to close it, with so much security around.