but a small dose of affection would have helped.
Vikram watched her square her shoulders unconsciously, as if to prepare for a not very palatable task. Her smooth forehead was puckered in thought, and her lips were pursed slightly. She looked determined and vulnerable at the same time. So far he’d been very careful not to touch her, beyond a casual peck on the cheek or a caress on the hand, but the temptation to kiss her now was immense.
‘You’re leaving tomorrow, aren’t you?’ Tara asked, her head still downcast.
‘I’ve been away from work for almost two weeks,’ Vikram said. ‘I need to get back and get things in order before November.’
Tara didn’t reply, and he took her chin between his thumb and forefinger, tipping her face up so that he could look into her eyes.
‘Cheer up,’ he said quietly.
She blinked, a little breathless, ‘I am! I mean I’m cheerful enough. Just a little jittery.’
‘Maybe this will help …’ he said.
She shivered at the promise in his husky voice, staring mesmerised into his eyes as he bent his head. He kissed her very gently, his lips feather-light against hers. The sensation was exquisite, but Tara felt herself begin to panic. She didn’t know how to respond. Her impulse was to drag his head closer and make him keep kissing her, but she had a feeling she should be doing something herself—moving her lips? Doing something with her tongue? She could have screamed in frustration when he released her after barely ten seconds.
‘See you in a month,’ he said softly, and she stepped back.
They didn’t have much time to talk after that, as Vikram’s mother came bustling into the room after a few minutes to take Tara’s opinion on a menu for the wedding reception.
The next month was crazy. Vikram went back to Bengaluru after putting an embarrassingly large diamond on Tara’s finger, and both his mother and Tara’s threw themselves into wedding preparations. Tara stayed out of them as much as possible, concentrating on getting some preliminary reading done for her PhD before the wedding took over her life. Vikram called a few times, and e-mailed often, but the conversations had a surreal quality to them—they ended up discussing trivial things, like whether the colour of the tie he was wearing to the reception would clash with her sari, rather than the fact that they were days away from committing to spending the rest of their lives together.
The wedding itself was to be a quiet family affair—Vikram wanted it that way, and Tara’s father had reluctantly agreed. Tara felt a bit of a fraud as her mother carefully arranged the folds of her green and gold brocade sari.
The whole thing didn’t seem real yet, she thought, moving her head irritably. In addition to the weight of her already heavy hair, she had enough flowers pinned in it to stock a moderate-sized florist’s shop for a week. She was extremely sleep-deprived—she hadn’t slept much the night before, and the ceremony was starting at an unearthly hour in the morning because that was the ‘auspicious time’ the Krishnans’ priest had come up with. And she was very, very jittery.
The enormity of what she was doing had just begun to dawn on her, and the result was as fine an attack of nerves as one could have hoped for.
‘This’ll be your first night—’ her mother started to say.
Tara cut across her rudely. ‘If you’re going to tell me the facts of life, Mum, you’re some ten years too late.’ Her mother flushed painfully, sending Tara into one of her instant guilt trips. ‘Sorry, Amma,’ she muttered.
Her mother recovered with dignity. ‘It’ll still be your first time. If you need to know something, ask me.’
‘Yeah, right …’ Tara muttered to herself.
Her mother hadn’t even bothered to tell her about contraception—if she thought her daughter was all that innocent, wouldn’t that be the least she’d do? Or maybe she wanted her to get pregnant, Tara thought darkly, so that she’d give up all hopes of having a career, or even a life of her own. Anyway, she’d sorted things out for herself, going to the gynaecologist mother of a friend of hers and getting three months’ supply of the Pill.
She was still brooding when her closest friend, Ritu, entered the room.
‘I’ll take over, Aunty,’ she said cheerfully to Tara’s mum. ‘Only the make-up to be done, right?’
Tara’s mother escaped thankfully, and Ritu pulled up a chair.
‘Nervy?’ she asked, raising her eyebrows.
Tara nodded.
‘I take back everything I said about this being a bad idea.’ Ritu said. ‘I saw your fiancé for about five minutes outside, and he’s gorgeous. Most women would kill for a night with a man like that.’
Tara gulped. Other than a kissing session with a college classmate, which she’d entered into on a purely experimental basis, she was terribly inexperienced when it came to men. And Vikram looked anything but inexperienced. He’d probably slept with dozens of women. The thought of the wedding night had her tied up in knots. She was so unsure about what to do and how to behave. The thought of actually getting into bed with Vikram was scary and exciting at the same time, and a little shiver went through her.
‘Feeling cold?’ Ritu asked, oblivious to the turmoil in her best friend’s mind. ‘It’ll be warmer in the main hall—it’s actually getting a bit stuffy. There are dozens of people around. You sure you don’t have some gatecrashers in there?’
Tara grinned unwillingly. At some point, the ‘quiet family affair’ had got completely out of control, probably because the ‘family’ on either side numbered over a hundred people. The noise filtered in even through the closed doors of the changing room. Everyone was talking and laughing at once, the priest was chanting Sanskrit mantras at the top of his voice, and to add to the pandemonium there were live musicians playing traditional music to accompany the mantras. The plaintive strains of the nadaswaram in the background intensified the fluttery feeling in Tara’s stomach, and for an instant she had a childish impulse to cover her ears with her hands.
After about ten more minutes her mother turned up again, to lead her out to the wedding pavilion.
‘I can’t see—stop shoving me!’ she hissed, her eyes discreetly lowered as her mother had instructed.
She was seething as she was finally pushed into her seat in front of the sacred fire by various over-helpful female relatives. The noise was much louder, and the heavy beat of the drum seemed to make her heart pound harder. Her eyes began to water—the priest had just poured a pot of butter into the fire, and it was smoking dreadfully.
‘Such a coincidence, meeting you here,’ an extremely sexy voice drawled into her ear.
She spun towards the sound and found herself looking right into Vikram’s eyes.
‘Calm down,’ he said, lowering his voice. ‘Not changed your mind, have you? You look more like you’re at a funeral than a wedding.’
‘I feel ridiculously over-dressed,’ Tara muttered, taking in the sight of Vikram in a white T-shirt over a veshti, the single white cotton kilt-like lower garment that was traditional male garb for any South Indian religious occasion—weddings and funerals included.
His hair was still damp from the shower, and the white collar of his T-shirt set off his tanned skin to perfection. Ritu was right—he looked gorgeous. Tara unconsciously clenched her hands. It wasn’t fair. She didn’t want to be attracted to him so strongly. He was just looking at her now, for God’s sake, and it was driving her crazy with longing. The suppressed heat in his eyes was making her imagine all kinds of delicious things.
‘You look absolutely stunning,’ he said finally, his voice low. ‘Don’t look at him now, but even the pundit’s checking you out.’
Tara smiled. She couldn’t help it. Vikram was perhaps