Stories-The Pub

“Can you pass me a lighter?”, he says to the waiter as he sits in a pub waiting for Sameera.

The waiter gawks at him as he lights the cigarette, holding it between his middle and ring finger. A chain smoker, possessing a distinct mannerism of smoking.

While he takes his first puff, restless, meddling with his phone and constantly checking the time, Sameera enters the pub. The lights of the place shimmering across her beautiful face, subtle music in the backdrop, wearing a black dress and high heels, exchanging glances of familiarity, Sameera strides towards Atul.

“Hi Atul”, she says as she takes a puff from his cigarette.

Sameera, the sexiest person in all rooms. Sameera, a fantasy. Sameera, with the heart of gold. Sameera, with the weirdest sense of humor.
Sameera, Atul’s best friend.

Two college mates meeting up after two years, with no history of romantic shenanigans. Then, the popular, charismatic youth. Now, mere miserable adults, catching up on their quarter life crisis. Crises? You don’t know when they’ll pop up – at what age, at what circumstance, and at what cost.
YOU WILL NEVER KNOW.
But when they do pop up, sometimes, they have the tendency to shatter the very core of your being.

“For the lucky ones, hotness is directly proportional to their age. For the unlucky ones, the lucky ones turn out to be just friends”, says Atul as Sameera moves the chair to take a seat.

“Life is such”, says Sameera and they have a good laugh.
Sameera looks straight into Atul’s eyes as if wanting to reveal something hidden between deep layers of her self.

In such a scenario where two close friends catch up after a long time, the conversation usually swings and touches upon all aspects of life. But in most cases, there are a few things even best of friends are reluctant to share.
A battle with the voices in their head reverberating without an off button.

“Um, let’s do our thing, let’s play a game”, says Atul exactly knowing that look on Sameera’s face.
For they go way back. For they are, to each other, their very own.

“What game?”, says Sameera, her face a total question mark.

“The game where we have an actual conversation.”, says Atul sarcastically.

Sameera rolls her eyes. “Okay, whatever”

Atul pretends to think for a moment. “Starting off with the most basic thing, work?”

Sameera frowns. “Manager is a man from hell. Boring. Never mind.”

“Family and um, health?”

“Hope is, as cute as always”, she says, about her dog. “Sister is happily married. Parents are good. All is good, actually.”

“How is therapy going?”

Sameera stumbles, hesitant. “Um, it’s exhausting”, she says thoughtfully.

“What about it is exhausting?”

Her anxiety creeps in. Sameera starts sweating, little droplets of water on her forehead. She takes a deep breath. Inhale. Exhale.

“Atul, there’s something I need to talk to you about.”
“So, go ahead”, says Atul, his eyes eagerly waiting for Sameera’s mouth to spit words like a dog waiting for its bone.

“Excuse me sir, can I take your order?” interrupts the waiter with a notepad and a pen which he clicks in his hand to take the order.
(“Excuse me sir?” Because most waiters have patriarchy instilled in them like the rest of us.)

Atul is annoyed like an audience during the interval after a crucial scene in a movie.

“3 whiskey shots each and a chilli chicken please”, says Atul reminiscing good old drunk days.

Their usual orders, with no major changes. Whiskey and chilli chicken.

Eager Atul. Anxious Sameera.

Sameera then stutters, “A-A-Atul, um, ac-actually, It’s about my s-s-sexuality. I’m gay.”

A blank face, an awkward silence stretches, his brain fogging at this sudden revelation. Atul is taken aback. He only recalls Sameera being with men. He scrunches his eyebrows, rubbing the first two fingers of his hand on his forehead totally perplexed.
Meanwhile, Sameera’s anxiety is racing. Nevertheless, she gives him the time to process.

“When did you know? How? What?”

Sameera explains, “I always knew. How? In the same way that you discovered you’re straight and what do you mean by ‘what’?”

“I mean, you were always into men…”

“The societal pressures” she says, biting the corner of her lip, shades of disappointment in her eyes.

“The societal pressures”, he repeats. “But Sameera, if you were always aware of this, why the hassle?”

“Atul, it’s the years of living under the shelter of denial, of fear, of hostility and lack of acceptance. My therapist says I’m finally getting in tune with my being.
But answering your question precisely, a sexual encounter. A woman who appeared like an unknown disease, leaving major symptoms in my body. I played doctor, only to end up with the realization that the disease was an outbreak of my nature. It evolved to be the affairs of the heart and it’s always best to not interfere in the matters of the heart.
You surrender.”

“Woah, woah, woah, so what about her? Who is she and when do I get to meet her?”, Atul asks with excitement.

“A closed chapter. A cul-de-sac sort of a situation. She came to show me, me and left like everything else eventually does. My life hasn’t been the same ever since. Let’s leave it at that.”, says Sameera smiling with a bittersweet feeling.

The waiter arrives with their shots and the chicken. The first shot in hand, Atul goes about to make a toast.

“To embracing and accepting yourself and to my unwavering love for you and our friendship”

Sameera is left in awe at her friend’s reassurance.

One shot down. Two shots down. Three shots down.
It is now Sameera’s chance at the “game”. A tipsy Sameera’s chance at the game.

A bite of the red sauce glazed chicken in mouth and Sameera realizes Atul’s attention is being stolen by the occurrence of an event at a fairly distant table. A triangular shaped, brown colored table, with chairs having a cross mark at the back, attached to a wall. A wall displaying the letters S-T-O-R-I-E-S glowing in blue neon lights, below which sat a man and a woman engrossed in a heated conversation, leading the man to walk away from the table. The woman sits there in disdain.

Atul and Sameera watch, empathizing with her.

“I think you should ask her if she wants to join us”, says Atul as if afraid to approach a woman after a heated argument.

Sameera, considering Atul’s suggestion, walks towards the woman’s table. A walk that exudes confidence and assertiveness.

“Hey”, says Sameera, cringing awkwardly.

“Uh, hi”, says the woman looking up at Sameera.

Brown eyes, long eyelashes, short silky hair, long legs, wearing a red half shoulder top and a smile truly endearing, the woman is a treat to the eyes. She has a tattoo on her right wrist. Two open triangles, that Sameera thinks mean “OPEN TO CHANGE”.

“I don’t mean to pry but would you like some company?”, says Sameera hopeful but also unwilling to intrude the privacy of a stranger in a bar.

“I’m Pallavi and my pronouns are she and her. I identify myself as a woman. I would love to have some company and even if I didn’t, nobody would want to say no to someone like you”, says the woman visibly checking her out.

“I’m Sameera and my pronouns are she and her. I’m a woman. May I buy you a drink?”, asks Sameera, blushing.

A trade of a steady flirtatious gaze.

Two more shots down, they decide to go dancing. Atul, Sameera and Pallavi. They dance and dance and dance. To each beat, getting closer and closer, the women into women. Atul on observing their gestures decides to make his way out for a smoke giving them a moment. He winks as he leaves. Ah! The mark of a true friend.

“I wonder how your hands would feel on me”, says Pallavi, certain of reciprocity from Sameera.

“Um, maybe” with a long pause. “You’ll know”, says Sameera with a look full of intent.

The sexual tension inevitably escalates. Pallavi recalls her friend saying, “Anything that is not an enthusiastic yes is a NO”. She asks for consent and consent is graciously granted.
In the blink of an eye, two smoking hot bodies are rubbing against each other like the tectonic plates of the earth causing an earthquake. (When two bodies rub against each other, they acquire equal and opposite charges. Nothing in this dynamic was of “opposites”. Physics 0. Biology 1. Chemistry 100.).

Fingers grazing the waist.
Tongues intertwining with ear lobes.
Noses swaying around necks.
Red lips finally colliding into each other, like mouths sucking on ice-creams.
Inexplicable hormones.
A trance state.

“Excuse me ma’am, can you please take this out?”, appears the manager as if out of nowhere, tucked in a suit like a magician.

His face, depicting a field of disgust. Is it because this is a public space? Maybe.
But, more like he is a paradigm of how a society views the members of the LGBTQIA+ community.

They acknowledge his presence, moving to their table. They are now in an attempt to have a conversation, each staring at the other, waiting for the utterance of words.

“If you don’t mind, What is your age, Sameera?”, asks a curious Pallavi.

Sameera could never fathom the fuss behind “Do not ask a woman her age”. She is comfortable admitting her age. Of course, why wouldn’t she be?

“I’m 24”

“What do you think my age is?”, asks Pallavi, raising her brow.

“It doesn’t matter”, says Sameera.

Lust. Lust and the things it makes you say.

“Take a wild guess”, insists Pallavi.

“Um, probably late tt-ww-een-ties?”, says Sameera not wanting to be wrong or offend Pallavi in any way.

“I’m 38”, says Pallavi and looks at Sameera, waiting for Sameera’s reaction.

“It still doesn’t matter”, repeats Sameera.

“I have a family. A husband and a son. I’m guessing it matters now?”, asks Pallavi, fearful of judgment. She then takes out her phone, her fingers scrolling to find the gallery in search of a picture of her beautiful son.
Her right wrist, two open triangles, “OPEN TO CHANGE”.
There he is, Vathsa, her 7 year old son, crooked teeth, filled with innocence, a mirror image of Pallavi.

Lack of words. Abundance of silence. The air smells of terror, of shock.
A night of revelations. A night of crisis.
Different ages. Different circumstances.
So similar, yet poles apart different.

A million questions crowding in a startled Sameera’s mind.

“Did you know before your wedding? Or is it something you discovered after?”, asks Sameera, crossing her fingers anxiously.

“It was a year ago. An intimate, vulnerable situation arose with a female colleague. It was uncalled for, but it happened.”

“Is your husband aware?”

“I live in a well of lies and beyond it, awaits a whole new world for me to explore”, shrugs Pallavi.

“I’m sorry you had to go through this. I cannot imagine what you must be going through. How do you feel?”

“By the day, a loving wife of a loving husband. By the night, a lonely middle-aged woman, bar hopping in search of other women to sleep with. An exponential feeling of being trapped, of being suffocated.”

A helpless Sameera continues to stare at Pallavi.

“It was very kind of you to listen. You are undoubtedly sexy Sameera and I thoroughly enjoyed the moments that lasted between us for a very short while. I’d like for us to meet again?” asks Pallavi waiting for a positive response.

“As much fun as I had, umm, I’m not really comfortable being a part of this arrangement. It’s a little too complicated for me. I’m sorry, but I truly hope you’re at a better place at the end of your journey of self-discovery. I think I should leave now. It was nice meeting you. Take care, Pallavi.”

Sexuality is fluid. A hundred percent true. Identifying yourself differently with age, also a hundred percent true. At all stages, sometimes merely due to explorations or experiments and sometimes due to unintended events, the constant questioning of “Who am I?”, and “Who I ought to be?” is in itself, a land of misery.
Actions have consequences and when the consequences of your actions tend to affect the lives of other people, who is to blame? What do you pay heed to?
The lives of people dependent on you, the boundaries this society expects you to conform to or your sexuality that cropped up mid-life shattering the essence of your life.

The grave ramifications on your plate in search of “YOU”, indeed.
Life, a stifling turmoil.

Choices ache. But they are made – they have to be.

Sameera goes about in search of Atul, unsure of how she feels about the night.
Pallavi walks back home, attending to the formalities of her family life.

As they part ways, the wall between them displayed the letters S-T-O-R-I-E-S, glowing in blue neon light.