I guess I can never correctly single out the moment that I first met her. But the moment I met her I fell in love with her. And so it seemed to be the case with her too. My parents tell me that we actually met a few days after I was born. They tell me it was the moment when they were bringing the 10 day old me out of the hospital to be brought home. I was going out of the hospital and she was going in. But I still remember that we were instantly attracted. But I was too young to realize that attraction.
As time went by we grew up together. Her touches grew more and more exciting as I grew up and reached a zenith when I evolved into a teenager. It is actually a miracle that no one in my family found out about those innumerable meetings. Many a night we were alone on the roof top. Her fondling touch raising my sensuousness. Her alternating cool and warm touches played across my chest. During all these meetings never once did she allow me to touch her. This made it all the more tantalizing to me. Every meeting used to end in an unprecedented manner. It was either my Mom calling for dinner, or my sister asking me to pick up my phone or something much more stupid that broke our meetings.... What made this relationship even more electric was that everyone in my family knew her well enough. And she was equally receptive and pleasing to all members of my family. But she wasn’t related to me either.
I can never forget the great times we had during my college days. It was real fun having her around when I ride my motorcycle. Our home was in a rather narrow lane that left no room for newer buildings to sprout around and was always heavily infested with people as is in such lanes. She used to wait at the end of the lane for me to appear on my motorcycle. A 135 c.c.Yamaha. From there to my college is about 14 kilometers. A rather lonely ride too, for any passerby to really notice what one does on such rides. Needles to say, we both enjoyed it every day.
Two years later and very satisfactorily employed in a software firm, I was beginning to lose touch with her for the first time in my life. It was becoming more and more difficult to meet her with my busy schedule. Many a time has she gently tapped my bedroom windows and asked me to come onto the roof and many a time I dint. I was either too tired or too preoccupied to notice it. The monotonous life had set in and I forgot her. But she never forgot me. She used to wait for me at the same spot hoping that we would relive my college days. But this was a different me. I was working software professional. And so I acted as though I ignored her, pulled up my windcheater (my jacket) and was off to work.
Another two years went by before I got married to the girl who sat a few cubicles away from me. I met my future wife just as I was coming out of the office’s cafeteria when she bumped into me. Our eyes met at that instant. That was when I decided that this was the girl that I was meant to marry. Three months of dogged pursuit followed by a year of courtship and we were happily married. I conveniently forgot to tell my wife my relationship with my first love. But all these events my first love merely watched.
The next time she tried to allure me was ten years later. By this time I had moved into a large plush apartment that had three bedrooms with an underground car parking facility. It was when I brought my new set of wheels, a new Honda City, out to the apartment’s courtyard. She had been waiting for me as before. I felt the tingle of electricity inside me. But I now had a 6 year old boy and a 4 year old girl who needed to be dropped off at school before I could begin my hectic day at the office. I tried to avoid her by turning up the sun film-coated windows of my car and then proceeded to my daily chores.
Turning 40 years old is a turning point in one’s personal life. An affair is most alluring at that point in time. Old memories of young love never die easily. I began an affair once again. Again it was easy. No one suspected us. It was again on the roof top. She was as good and as exciting as before. But the aging sure had an effect one must add. Nevertheless my mistress’s touch was far more enticing than my wife’s. I had made arrangements for everything. My kids were at my parents’ home and my wife was at her mother’s. No one ever suspected anything. Not even the night watchman who appeared bewildered when I asked him to keep open the door to the roof that night. He merely shrugged his shoulders and left with the keys jingling in his fingers. It was to be just as it was when I was twenty years old. But it was not to be the night I expected. She did not turn up. I waited till midnight (which was out usual waiting hour for the other to turn up) before I hit the bed.
Two weeks of dread followed during which all I could think of was her touch. Then suddenly one morning there she was again! This time I knew for sure she would be there that night. This time too I was lucky to have the roof to myself. My wife was at my sister’s home along with my kids. I had lied that I would be late from work that Friday. The watchman, by now familiar with my unusual requests, had left the door to the roof open. The scene was set and she arrived on time. It was an ecstatic evening .One of pure pleasure. A long wait that had run into years by then had never diminished my passion for her. I was tired when I went to bed that night at two ‘o’clock.
I woke up to a furiously ringing telephone call that morning. It was from my wife who was staying with my sister at the sea shore house. She had called to tell me that my first love was there outside my sister’s place and that she was so angry that she was thrashing all that lay outside the house. I reassured my wife that all was going to be well and I that I was coming there to sort out matters. I jumped right into my car and speed away to my sister’s with a deaf ear to my watchman’s warnings.
Thankfully she was gone by the time I reached there. At least her anger was gone. I could not believe my eyes when I saw what had happened. The place was a total mess. I saw that she had smashed car glasses and windows. She must have been throwing everything about. I went inside, gave my wife a bear hug, and consoled my kids that everything is going to be alright. I seated them in the car along with my sister and her husband and drove back home to the safety of my apartment.
There was always one thing that I could never fathom during all those years of my knowing her. You never knew when she might turn angry, or for what reason, or what she will do when she becomes angry. It was the drive home followed by the tranquility of my home that knocked some sense into me. By end of the day I had decided to end my relationship once and for all. I had decided that it was too risky for a father of two, happily married, to be alone on the rail less roof top of any building to enjoy the wind caressing my body.
The Wind Elemental.
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