CHAPTER 29
Their love was in the color of conviction. It was in the weightless communion of their lips and nectared smiles. The light coming through the window of the motel room was blanched. It teased its way through the over-starched curtains to spill across their faces. They did not answer its call.
Omkar had rented the room for a night. It was only natural for Aria to expect him to make love to her there. But to her surprise, Omkar had initiated nothing. Instead, when she stripped down to her underwear, he kept his clothes on for good measure and pulled her backward against the curve of his body, like a pearl against the bend of a clamshell. She could hear the excitement in his breathing; it was like a sea sliding when the ocean wants to claim something on shore for its own. But he would not allow his body to follow suit. They slept a fitful night, churned in the stimulation of being so near each other. And now, it was the morning.
His fingers adored her. They slid across the silk of her, cherishing each freckle and pore. They traced the lifted pathways that had been carved into her arms by glass and steel. Omkar could not imagine the kind of pain that could drive her to such an action. All he could imagine was to rescue her from it. He carried the grief of her scars with the tribute of his fingertips and the kisses that he placed on them. He was not trying to arouse her with his touch. Instead, he was calming her. There was a poem in his touch and the verses of that poem spoke of solace.
Aria knew what to do with herself when it came to sex, but not to this. Not to being loved by a man. Aria was conscious that she loved the smell of him. She listened to those verses he spoke through his touch as if they were spoken in a foreign tongue. She was out of her element and out of her depth. When they spoke to each other, their words felt so shallow compared to the conversation of touch.
“Did you sleep OK?” Omkar asked her. Aria nodded. “Did I crowd you?” he asked.
“No,” Aria answered. She wanted to thank him. She wanted to tell him that spending the night next to him had made it the best night of her life. She wanted to tell him that he was the first straight man who had slept with her without “sleeping with” her. But those deeper words wouldn’t come. They would make her so vulnerable that some part of her would not let them out.
By the time they sat up, the sunlight had turned from white to yellow. The city had already long been marching around them and the breakfast hour had ended. Omkar picked up his phone and started listening to the messages he had received over the course of the night. His parents had called him 23 times since the incident the day before and they had left 16 messages. At first, the messages were angry. Then they were worried. They were worried even before Omkar did not come home for the night. Now, in two of the messages that his father had left in the early morning, Omkar could hear his mother in the background crying and telling Neeraj what to say.
Omkar set the phone down and looked at Aria. “I think I should go talk to them. They are really freaking out. They sound like they might be willing to at least hear me. I can pay for another night and you can stay here until I come back if you want.”
Aria thought about asking to go with him, but decided against it. She didn’t want to feel the pierce of whatever they might say about her. But sitting in an antiseptic motel room felt isolating. Some part of her was afraid that Omkar would come back through the door later that night, having been talked into following their advice, and tell her that he couldn’t see her anymore. She didn’t want to sit there waiting all day under the vulture’s wing of that potential.
“Um, actually, there’s a church up the street from the shop. Is it OK if you drop me off there? I have a couple people I might want to see there,” she said.
“Yeah, OK, sure,” Omkar said, happy that in his absence he would not have to carry the guilt of her waiting on him. “Are we supposed to take these to the front desk?” he asked, holding up the little plastic cards that served as room entry keys.
“I don’t know,” Aria said, giggling at their naivety.
“I’d better just take them to the front just in case. I’ll be back in just a minute. When I knock, let me back in, OK?” Omkar said, tying the laces of his shoes before exiting the room to return them.
When he returned, Aria heard the polite rapping of his knuckles against the doorframe. She started laughing to herself instead of getting up to open the door. Having decided at the last minute to pull a little prank on him, she acted like she didn’t hear him. When he tried to peek inside the window, Aria hid behind the door. She tolerated a few of his attempts to yell at her that he was there and to open the door before she opened it. Upon seeing her laugh so hard, Omkar understood it was a joke that she had played on him and began to chase her around the room. Eventually, after making him chase her up onto the beds, she intentionally gave up and let herself be caught by him. The humor of the moment was dissolved by the way his breath capsized against her and the way
