Page 56 of No Other Love
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“So, what now?” I asked him, settled comfortably in a most uncomfortable position.
The ocean lapped lazily around us; its sounds muted against the racing of our hearts. In sync. Beating together.
Yes, it’s possible, and not an exaggeration. Swimmers and rowers and dancers do it all the time. Someone has possibly published a medical research paper on the possible hypothesis for sure.
“You decide.”
“What would happen if this were one of your romance books?” I was playful, shoving the collar of his kurti aside and kissing his collarbone.
“Well…we’d fuck here. Since we are done with the declarations of love. And it’s almost the end of the night.” He caught my bare waist and pulled me closer to his arousal.
I smiled wickedly. And climbed his lap to straddle him. “Ten saris the year you can afford it, right?”
“What?” His eyes crossed and his breath hitched because I was also rubbing myself against his cock. “What did you say, sweetheart?”
“Nothing. Just fuck me like we are at the end of a romance novel, okay?”
He opened his night-dark eyes and regarded me with quiet wonder.
My smile shimmered at the edges. Because I remembered that boy who’d sat next to me in Anatomy class and given me his pen to share. And I remembered the man who’d promised to marry me and protect me and cherish me and keep me for seven lifetimes. And the man who’d chosen himself so he could find me in the end.
And they were all this man. This insanely unpredictable, incredibly handsome, highly capable, romantic man.
“Yeah,” Vikrant said clearly. And smiled that smile that had pierced my heart all those years ago.
“Finally.”
Epilogue
Just another day of happy ever after
Crack. Pop. Burst. Crack. Crack.
I winced as the noise from the fireworks permeated my eardrums and came this close to shattering them. Outside, Aai and Baba were letting off Roman Rockets while my dad stood stiffly in his designer kurta and pajamas with a solitary foot long sparkler that crackled.
Meanwhile, Vikrant, the love of my life, light of my heart, Dr. Vikrant Pandit MBBS, MD (General) and FRCS at the Royal College of Scotland ran around like a little kid with his cousins and set off streams of the bigger fireworks. The ones that shot upseveral feet in the sky and littered it full of colored stars – red, blue, green, yellow stars.
He turned around and whooped at me. And I shook my head.
Then he came bounding to my side, like a puppy and kissed the top of my head. After four years of seeing a changed Vikrant be extremely romantic in front of his family (and one extremely awkward moment of us on the kitchen island while his parents were sipping tea in the family room) no one batted an eyelid at his PDA.
I still kind of went a little red in my cheeks because my parents were there too and they never got used to seeing their son-in-law be so openly affectionate. Although to give the devil his due, everyone had been making a concentrated effort at playing happy families. And some days, like today, we even succeeded.
‘You okay, baby?’ He spoke in a low voice I could hear over the loud noise and the music that his cousin, Amrut, insisted on blaring.
‘I’m fine. Going slowly deaf but fine otherwise.’
‘Listen, if you want me to tell everyone to fuck off because you need your beauty rest, I can do that in a heartbeat. You have worked extremely fucking hard to get this promotion, RMO Anika Chakraborty-Pandit.’ He kissed the side of my sticky, sweaty head again.
I beamed, as I did, every time I heard him call me Resident Medical Officer. It’s a huge promotion from being a regular surgical resident and meant I had my own patients, a tiny office and the pick of surgeries at the NICU. It meant I was cultivating a reputation for myself that superseded the hospital I worked at.
After a year of shuffling back and forth between Aronda and Mumbai, with a lot of travel sex in strange Airbnbs, Vikrant and I had had enough of a commuter marriage. Vikrant decided to take his MD exam again, studying remotely at Aronda. And by then, he’d found a worthy partner in Dr. Dikshit who was trusted in the community and came with two more doctors – since the Dikshits were a medical dynasty in Goa. His workload was not so constant, and he could devote his time to preparing without any kind of pressure.
He passed his second attempt with flying colors and could have chosen to do anything. But he still chose to base half his practice in Aronda. And continued studying for his next specialization, the fellowship in Scotland.
So, I chose to practice half my residency in a hospital in Panjim. It was not easy, when Vikrant left for Scotland and I became the primary caregiver for both sets of parents but he was worth it. Because, once he came back (after we had a two-week long honeymoon in the rolling greens of Scotland), I could focus on getting my promotion and ascend to Head of Pediatric Surgery in seven years. The RMO was a step below attending doctor and would eventually lead to my final career goal.