Sang e Khisht

باب بائسواں

میرے محبوب میرے سنم
شکریہ، مہربانی، کرم
٭

Chapter 22 : Theek

Parked under the leafless tree, it's bony branches spread far apart in riveting sharp angles, the car's roof grazed a few knuckles of dried leaves. It's flaxen bark was a contrast to the night ebony shade of the cruiser, the narrowness of it too awkward against the width of the car's bonnet. It's height though intriguingly a fistful shorter than the bony tree's. The engine purred in a soft silence and the vibrations that stemmed out of it barely hummed against the flesh pressed up against the door. In a slumped defeat.

Man versus slumber.

The driver stood outside the car and watched ahead. His neck frozen with rods of iron — forbidden to turn his head around towards the windscreen of the car. Lest he catch sight of his owner and his wife share intimate moments. He gasped for breath in the outside world and his beard moved in a low grumble as he chewed on the butt of his cigarette. The woman had softened his owner's heart ; though he refused to acknowledge that much. It was a well known fact amongst the worker class in Naazimgarh. A fact that was becoming beloved to them.

The people before them had had an English princess to adore, and now they had someone with their own skin.

Inside the car that smelt of roses and spice from the bowl of gol gappe, roamed inside the cabin of the car. It's sterile clean scent of alcohol wipes had been far removed. Through the gently turned on stereo that played with a softness, was a song they adored. Trickling through the power speakers, the treble was non existent and the tweeters jazzed the air. Amongst their soft chews, Noor Jehan played an important solidifying role as she sung about a lover that had not come to the bridge.

Abandonment had in their own ways kissed the two. Darab with the untimely death of all those he cared for. Golnar with a mother who had despised her father —apparently not his wealth— leaving her. Lover was a person you adored and the two were lost in thoughts of their own. Too far engrossed to even make comments on the funny sight of their expensive car parked between the dingy motorbikes.

Golnar pushed the shell filled with the liquid inside her mouth. Chewing softly she felt it ooze inside her mouth, pressuring against her tastebuds, before the cool water slid down her throat. She hummed in delight, slowly borrowing the shell from Darab's plate, throwing him a soft eye as she took it into her mouth with gentleness. Offering him a cocky grin, raising the threaded bridge of her eyebrow, she challenged him. Licking the corner of her mouth to savour every remnant of flavour.

Darab wiped his hand on the corner of his kameez, the crispness of it explained to him the expensiveness of it. While it had been selected by Golnar with care, he had not cared enough to find out whatever 'amazingly nice thread count' meant. To him it was cotton that did it's job to clothe his figure lest he create a scandal in public with his preferred state of nudeness. Still feeling a light stickiness, he licked on to his fingers before dragging them against his shirt again. Delighted at the wonders it had done.

With his head tipped against the headrest, their driver done with his own plate and the bill paid, Darab turned to stare at Golnar. An increasingly becoming past time of his. A new habit his heart yearned to indulge in, though he knew in two days it would come to an end as they would return to Naazimgarh. Where a handful of undone business remained.