eFiction India eFiction India Vol.02 Issue.09 | Page 19

STORIES

revelling in the adrenaline rush that came
from the speed as well. Her slim bronzed
hand skimmed over the seat to come to rest
on Veer’s firm muscular thigh. He turned
to look at her, want in every pin point of
his being. Aakansha saw this and laughed
in delight like a kid in a candy store. It was
intoxicating to have such power.
Veer the maverick, the loner, the shipping
mogul. Veer, her best friend’s father and
now her husband. Rhea hated her for their
marriage and she shrugged inconsequentially; that was her problem, she would have
to deal with it. Veer had always affected her
right from the moment she had gone to
their house for the first time when she was
six years old and they were classmates in
First Grade. He had always been a shadowy
figure in the background; polite but taciturn and forbidding. She and Rhea liked
playing hide-and-seek but her father’s study
was always a big no-no. That was until she
thought he wasn’t in one day and ran and
hid under the table. Rhea would never find
her here, she had chuckled to herself. Rhea
hadn’t, but her father had. He had told her
to come out from under his desk and then
made her sit down on the chair in front of
him and explained to her why children were
not allowed to play in big people’s rooms.
Then he had given her a pen with his name
embossed on it. It had made her feel so
important. She never told Rhea about it:
that had been her secret treasure for a long,
long time. In fact she still had it. Maybe she
would remind Veer of that story one day.
Eeeni, Meeni, Mynah, Mo; Now where, oh
where did Aakansha go?
They had been playing hide-and-seek that
day as well and she had been hiding behind
the curtain in Rhea’s parents’ bedroom
where her mother was sleeping. She saw
Rhea’s father come in and sit down on the
bed next to his wife. She had been sick a lot
lately and Rhea had been missing school as
well. She missed her when that happened.
She saw him stroke her head and then bend
down over her as if to hear what she was
saying. He got up to leave and then she
saw Rhea’s mother put out a hand to stop
him. She held on tightly even though she
looked so white and frail. Eventually he sat
back down again and she heard the murmur

of voices once more. Again she saw Rhea’s
father jump up and walk up and down distraught, running his fingers through his hair
distractedly. Were they fighting?
Then just as suddenly he sat down on the
bed grabbed a pillow and put it on his
wife’s face. At first Aakansha thought it was
a game they were playing. She had been
seven years old, she didn’t know what to
think. Instinct made her keep quiet and she
only sneaked out of her hiding place after
Uncle Veer had left the room. Aunty was
still sleeping. Rhea never came to school the
next day and their teacher had told them
her mother had died. She still visited Rhea’s
house but it was quite a few years later that
she connected the dots and realised what
had happened. God Bless Harold Robbins
for that.
At first she was scared, she didn’t want to
say anything to Rhea to upset her, it had
been hard enough for her already. She didn’t
want to talk to her parents either; she was
sure they would stop her from playing with
Rhea if they knew and she couldn’t bear
that. Besides she was sure they would have
got Uncle Veer arrested. However, she didn’t
feel comfortable going to their house and
tried to make as many excuses as possible
not to go there. For her it was the house
with a chilling secret.
At sixteen, things changed… She suddenly
became fascinated with what had transpired that day. It was like walking on the
dark side. She now tried to visit them on
the flimsiest of pretexts. She found herself
sneaking glances at Rhea’s Dad… Is that
what murderers looked like? Poor Aunty;
how could Uncle Veer have done that to
her? Why had he done it?
At eighteen, the world discovered her:
rich, beautiful, vivacious, fun-loving, the
list went on and on. One night when on
a sleepover at Rhea’s, she had gone out to
the balcony as she couldn’t sleep and she
saw Uncle Veer taking a late night swim
before he turned in. Unaware of her watching him, his lean, toned body sliced the
water powerfully with barely a ripple. As
she saw him emerge that day from the pool,
she knew she would never see him as Rhea’s
Dad again. For her he was now just ‘Veer’.

18

She had thrown everything she could
at him, let the world be damned, but he
never ever wavered from treating her like his
daughter’s friend. He was an attractive man,
a successful man, but she knew many others
like him. It was the element of danger that
he brought into the mix that held her inexorably. The hint of menace was mesmerising. She and she alone knew what he had
done and that knowledge held her captive
like a moth to a flame, flying ever dangerously closer and closer. Yes, Veer had shaped
her life, more than he would ever know.
Fear, loathing, curiosity, temptation, he had
always been there.
Rhea was devastated by her behaviour and
hated her with a vengeance. Her father
despised Veer for taking advantage of his
c