Chapter 15

rulama

@rulama

[MEMBERSONLY]

[NOCOPY]

MARRYING KHUSHI

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Part 17

Section 1

Khushi looked at the happy faces around the breakfast table. All were smiling, all were planning, all were excited, all were delirious with joy! Except her!

She punched the air out of the poori staring at her from her plate, imagining it to be the Rakshas' face.

"Garima, take out Khussi's mother's jewellery. We need to get them polished, Nandkisore!" Buaji reminded them.

"Haan, Jiji. And we have to go shopping for clothes for the two brides." Garima smiled.

"Buy whatever you want from Nathulal's shop, and ask him to bring the bill to Satwik Mishtaan Bhandaar in the evening." Sasi Gupta added.

"Ji." Garima smiled.

"And don't forget to buy gifts for the Raizadas." Sasi smiled, looking fondly at his two daughters, both gazing at the food on their plates with unseeing eyes, but for different reasons.

The nightmare of the weddings was approaching on very fast feet, Khushi thought, feeling short of breath. Jewellery, clothes... Buaji and her parents were discussing the caterers... and the decorators... Khushi gulped.

She had tried to tell them that she didn't want to marry Arnav Singh Raizada, but no one wanted to listen to her. It was as though she had become invisible, as if her voice was inaudible! They were looking through her, and arranging her wedding without her participation. He Devi Maiyya!

She needed to talk to that wicked man... at the earliest. She had to make him tell her family that he did not wish to marry her. But how? Last night, after the weddings were fixed, he had left with the others without meeting her. The... the Laad Governaar! She tightened her fingers around her glass of water, imagining it to be the Rakshas' neck.

Khushi walked up and down her room.

Mittu sat on the frame of her bed and watched her.

"Mittu, I need to speak to that... that Shaitan!" she confided.

"Balma, balma..." Mittu sang.

"Naa Re! Shaitan! Rakshas!" Khushi corrected her. "What can I do? How can I meet him?" she fretted.

Buaji had informed her in no uncertain terms that she was not to leave the house till the wedding, unless and until it was for the wedding shopping, which was to be done along with the family.

Her phone was lying in pieces on the evil man's floor, thrown by her own fair hands. Khushi hit her head in exasperation. "He Devi Maiyya, ye humne kya kar diya?"

How could she contact him? What if she used the land phone? But she didn't know his number. She would have to call Manjuji and get his number. But Manjuji's number was saved in her phone, the phone that was lying in all its shattered splendour in Sheesh Mahal! And even if she had his number, how could she call him without her family finding out?

Khushi clutched her head with both hands. "He Devi Maiyya! Raksha karna!" she chanted, desperate.

After a day of vigorous shopping, Payal went to bed early and slept the sleep of the virtuous. Khushi paced the room, muttering to herself, her inventive brain coming up with a hundred crazy plans and discarding them.

She looked at the clock. Eleven.

She peeped out of her room. There was no light in Buaji's room. Amma and Babuji had retired to bed early tonight.

"Khushi! This is your only chance! It is no use whining that you are married to the Shaitan after getting married to him. Kuch karna he to shadi se pehle karna hoga!" she told herself.

She crept back in to her room. Mittu looked at her with beady eyes.

"Mittu, don't tell anyone." she begged the parrot. She arranged pillows in a line and covered them with a blanket.

She looked at herself in the mirror, anxious. She was in a green anarkali. She straightened her bindi and smoothed down her hair. Not to impress the Rakshas, she told herself. She was dressing for herself! She arranged her dupatta around her neck, kissed Mittu, grabbed a balanket, and spared one glance at her sleeping Jiji.

She left the house through her window, her heart galloping like wild horses, fear, excitement, and anticipation making her breathe shallowly.

Khushi reached the grounds of Sheesh Mahal, shivering, her green anarkali covered by the blanket.

She made her way towards his room on the ground floor.

"Please Devi Maiyya! Let him not have exchanged his room with one of his relations! What will I do if he is not here? How can I climb pipes at midnight in search of Arnav Singh Raizada's room?" Khushi asked her mentor. "And that too in this bhooth bunglow with too many rooms?"

The window was open.

She peeped inside, and a sigh of relief left her. His laptop was on a low table. His night clothes were laid on the bed. He had apparently not retired yet. Nor had he given up his room to one of his relations.

Khushi looked around her, clutching her blanket to her to ward off the cold. Was anyone watching her?

There was no one out on the cold night.

"Why should there be anyone out on such a night, Khushi? All people are not mad like you! They are all sleeping inside, curled up in their warm blankets." she chided herself.

Slowly, she hoisted herself up and through the window, and fell on the floor in an ungainly heap.

"His window is just like the Rakshas! No manners!" Khushi grumbled. "And too high! How can all intruders have long legs? How will people like me get in?" she asked.

She got up from the ground, dusting herself down.

She would have to wait for him. She looked at the clock. Thirty minutes past eleven. Wasn't he sleepy? Why was he so late? she grumbled.

"He Devi Maiyya, please don't let Amma, Babuji, or Buaji find out that I have stolen out! I will give you a plate full of jalebis tomorrow. Please!" she bargained.

She heard movement along the corridor leading to the Rakshas' room.

Nanheji was saying, "Nannav, good night. And sweet sweet dreams of Khushiji!"

"As sweet as her jalebi!" Anjaliji laughed.

Khushi looked around like a rabbit chased by hunting dogs, frantic for a place to hide.

She fell to the ground and tried to crawl under the bed, but there was little space. She ran to the sofa, the dressing table with a big mirror, the wardrobe, the recliner... but they could not give her refuge.

In the nick of time, she managed to dive behind the voluminous curtains.

"Good night!" ASR tried to push his family out of his bedroom, slightly flushed at the teasing.

"Arnav Bitwaa!" said Mami. "Bhen do you think your shy brother will cough up enough courage to speaks more than her namewaa to Payaliyya?"

Anjali laughed. "Mami, when he fell in love with Payalji, he asked me to inform you. He was too shy to tell you himself."

"My Akass Bitwaa ijj so slow, Hello Hi Bye Bye!" Mami rued. "Hamein doubt howath he woh hamra beta hi he ki naahi!"

Akashji saw Jiji and prem rog ho gaya? Khushi stared at the curtain covering her. But when did he see Jiji for the first time? At Preetho's sangeet! So he wanted to marry Jiji. And Jiji too liked him. That was why the family had come to her house to ask for Jiji's hand!

"Good night!" ASR made it clear that he wanted to go to bed in peace. He shut the door and locked it to be sure that no one disturbed him. Smiling slightly, he walked in to the room, his fingers unbuttoning his waistcoat.

His fingers paused.

Jasmine! He could smell jasmine in the air. Khushi...

He smiled slightly. Khushi must be in her snug bed, snoring away, dreaming of new ways to make him pay!

She was in his head 24x7, and he was imagining her scent to keep her close to him. He laughed at himself.

He sat on the bed and got rid of his footwear.

The look on her face when she had seen him in her house last night! His smile widened. If she could have sunk a knife in to him, she would have!

He moved towards the mirror, pulling the unbuttoned waistcoat off him and throwing it aside. He tugged the shirt out of his pants, and moved his fingers to the first button of his shirt. His eyes widened.

There was a bulge in the drapes!

As he watched in the mirror, the drapes parted slightly, and Khushi's round, moon-like face peeked out.

His breath stopped for a moment. She was not a figment of his imagination! She was here... in real... in the flesh. His heart began pounding feverishly.

He lowered his eyes to his fingers as they pushed the next button out of its hole.

Khushi was in his room. The door was locked. It was almost midnight. Why was she here? There was only one answer. She wanted to fight with him, make him cancel the wedding...

But he was not Arnav Singh Raizada for nothing!

His eyes narrowed, his nostrils flared. She couldn't leave him! He would block all the roads leading from him. She had to stay with him.

Khushi took a deep breath. His family had left. Now she could come out of her hiding place and attack him. The foot she lifted halted in mid-air.

The Rakshas was removing his shirt!

Standing before the mirror, he had finished unbuttoning his shirt. She could see the narrow strip of golden skin between the parted flaps of his shirt. Khushi swallowed through a dry throat, her eyes trapped by his naked glory.

ASR looked at the dazed look on Khushi's face with great delight. So she liked the look of him, did she? His lips curled in anticipation. Never let it be said that he didn't oblige Khushi Kumari Gupta, soon to be Mrs. Arnav Singh Raizada!

He shrugged the shirt off his shoulders and down his arms. It fell soundlessly to the floor.

All he could hear was Khushi's deeply drawn breath of shock! His blood rushed through his veins, racing gladly, anticipating great pleasure.

Khushi gasped, staring at him through the gap in the drapes, her heart thundering away. His broad shoulders, his muscled, hairless chest, his strong arms with lean muscles, the sculpted lines of his back... her rapt eyes ran all over him, trying to take in his beauty.

He lowered his fingers to his belt, unbuckled it, and threw it off.

Part 16: 96069716 Part 17: Section 2: 96216150

Link to Teaser: 96192786

rulama2013-11-19 08:43:51