ADGUDGED

“Is this wrong?” He asked himself one last time that day as he was peeking through his bedroom window, straight into the balcony of the home across his.

She stood there gazing across the stretch of the swanky apartment, perhaps trying to find a familiar face. No avail. She was repetitive in her endeavour. Not missing even a single day.

He had noticed it; and while she was busy indulging her curiosity, he indulged his rapacious thoughts.

She was married, and had a 12 year old kid. He was in his late 20’s, and thus began a tale of conundrum; a moral dilemma.

What is right after all, who could tell? He didn’t look for answers, for he was occupied with thoughts.

He decided to give into the urge. He stood in his balcony once, holding a steaming cup of tea, with every sip came a murmur in the heart of having to give into one of the most notorious ideas one could harbour.

He waited nonetheless. It didn’t take her too long to arrive in her balcony. He reckoned she was beautiful, and there was something inexplicable about her that left no chance at backing off for the young, raptured man. She had made a bun out of her curly, black her. She looked like a quintessential home maker.

However, he did find her every bit attractive. Today was that day when he would finally find his fantasy manifest into a desirous reality. He waited a tad bit, and as he noticed her eyes skimming over, he pinpointed the very moment of fixation and let out a ‘sly’ smile. He immediately regretted his decision to do so, for he did not want to prolong the inevitable.

He immediately left the scene and went straight into his bedroom and reprimanded himself verbally for even seeding a thought as murky as this.

He wanted to say sorry to the woman, but she wasn’t even aware of the problem, so that would make no sense. His eyes turned moist at the thought of his state. He was no less than a third-rate criminal conspiring against an innocent being. He went so far as to thinking about the extreme consequences of his action. His mind was turning numb & his head ached beyond telling. He decided to sleep for a few hours.

He went over to the window to draw the curtain, but just then he caught her eyes fixated on his bedroom window. He jolted away in a quick second. His heart skipped a beat. Suddenly the whole world had come crashing down on him. He wondered how long she stood there. He even thought as to whether she was waiting for him to arrive. That was ridiculous, he thought. Why would she do that? But he secretly wished hard for that to happen. As he was trying to register all of this, he noticed a sensation underneath. He had a bulge, an unmitigated, unwarranted bulge in his pants.

“Man! This is not cool”, he was clearly embarrassed at this point. But the plethora of situations, rather too compromising to believe had gushed all the blood in his body to one particular point.

He could no longer control his urges, and thus he viciously gave into his wildest fantasies.

After a few jerky motions, he had unloaded in the most vile fashion. So woeful was the episode that he felt, at that moment, the guiltiest man on the planet.

He quickly regathered himself. Brushed all the raunch under the carpet, & decided to simply move on.

He hoped to never see her again.

A few days passed by, luckily he didn’t have those glaring thoughts anymore. He sensed change and was positive about it.

*TRING TRING* rang the house telephone, one day, as he was busy with his chores. He picked it up after a few knocks. “Hi Prithwe, Sharan here!”, the voice on the other end said.

The young man perspired for a good minute, as his mouth went dry. Sharan was the ignored character of his story. The husband of the woman of the story.

He thought his time had come & that the consequences of his unforeseen actions, albeit with nothing solidified, were here to haunt him.

“We were playing Carrom, Shruti said you play well, why don’t you join if you’re free?”

Shruti?! How would she know? He was puzzled!

“Yeah, sure. I’ll join you”

He quickly went over, and the couple welcomed him in a warm manner.

They sat down for the game, & Prithwe was set to take the strike. Just then he looked over, she was sitting right across him.

He was petrified, but to his horror, she let out a sly smile this time around.

Too sly for comfort.