Jay & Sunayana: Ghosts of the Past!!

Timing always seemed to be a problem for Jay and Sunayana.

I left off the last part of this story (link here) with Jay having left Sunayana a mail inviting her to have a conversation. As luck would have it, Jay’s mail went straight to her Quarantined folder, as it was her work mail and her company had a rather strong filter for outside emails. Sunayana found the mail when she was reviewing the Quarantine folder a few months later. She didn’t know what to feel about it. Jay seemed to knock on her door at very strategic times. She had just broken up with a guy from work and finding this mail felt like a sign. She decided to call back.

Her call couldn’t have come at a worse time. Jay was actually on a date when he got her call. It was an unknown number which he picked up, assuming it might be from a client. His heart stopped beating when he heard her voice, like literally. He gasped for breath and excused himself from his gorgeous Tinder date to go to the men’s room. He had thought about this moment for so long but now that the moment was here, she just didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t as glib as he once was but he’d also grown up quite a lot. Once the initial shock wore off, conversation started flowing as it usually did with Sunayana. They had a lot of catching up to do.

“What have you been up to?” Jay asked her. He had kind of forgotten about the mail that he’d sent her a few months back. She told him. In the 4 years that had passed since they last saw each other, Sunayana had passed out of college and was placed in an IT firm in Bangalore. She had dated a few guys but nothing serious panned out from them. She had a few one-night stands but was tired of the anxiety those brought with them. She blurted all this out without thinking and started freaking out once she realized how frank she was being. Her bluntness wasn’t lost on him either. He was impressed and decided to match her candor. He told her that he was actually on a date right at that moment.

This seemed to make her quiet. She didn’t know why this upset her. “Why keep her waiting then?” she retorted and hung up. He called back instantly but she rejected his call. Jay’s date had long left when he went out and checked.  How long had that call run, he wondered. “28:36” his phone displayed the call duration. Tinder girl had assumed he’d ditched her. He finished the seafood platter the Tinder girl had ordered and left.

Later that evening, he called her back and apologized. He came clean to the Tinder girl and that was that. He then called Sunayana. He told her he was coming down to Bangalore to meet her. And Sunayana didn’t say no to him. She didn’t know how to say no to Jay. You’d think this escalated rather quickly but actually this was their real pace. The very next evening, Jay and Sunayana were at a café in Brigade Road, with a pitcher of orange juice. After discussing the last 4 years for a bit, their conversation wandered towards the time that was. “Do we really need to talk about that?” she asked.

“Well, I think we really had something, Suni. We had a once-in-a-lifetime kind of deal and we blew it. I keep thinking about it,” Jay said, with an expression of earnest.

“Crying over spilled milk won’t get you anything, would it?” Sunayana was saying this but her God knew that all she’d done for the last few months was cry at her old mistakes. When she’d left Jay, he used to feel like the Devil. But then Bismoy had happened. Remember Bismoy, the guy she had been dating when she officially broke up with Jay. Bismoy was the one who looked great on paper, but Sunayana had soon realized that he was a maniac, sexist and a “typical guy”. In the last few years, as Sunayana went through a series of strange relationships, she realized that Jay had been one of the “good ones”, relatively speaking.

Now you see, Jay had grown up quite a bit since they dated and hence he could see through Sunayana’s chain of thought. He’d always been insightful, especially with Sunayana and reading her wasn’t all that difficult for him now. He could see that she had that gleam of nostalgia about them even though she was trying to make him stop talking about their former relationship. He played on it, on her nostalgia. In a few hours, Jay and Sunayana were checking into a Novotel nearby.  Sunayana knew what was coming up next but didn’t have the heart to stop it.

I need my readers to understand that Jay and Sunayana shared a strange equation. At this point, they were both playing each other, while at the same time, they were both losing control. It was a moment of passion as well as a game. Jay couldn’t believe how exciting this felt. “We’re just gonna talk,” Sunayana said. Jay smiled at her.

Sunayana was a little amused at how cool Jay was playing it. He’s definitely been with more girls than was letting on, she thought. They had checked into a small room where the bed was really soft. Sunayana stepped out of the heels she had on and climbed up on the bed. She was being seductive, what with that black seer dress she had on, accentuating her curvy figure. Jay noticed.

Jay stood there thinking of all the things he wanted to do at that moment. There was a sense of urgency that he was feeling, but Sunayana looked relaxed. He went to the bathroom to wash his face and to think. He’d suddenly lost the zeal for a game. When he stepped out from the bathroom, Sunayana was already under the blanket and gave him a come-hither look. “We need to talk,” Jay said, “I need to know what this would mean to you. After all these years, this can’t just be a one night thing.”

Sunayana had taken off her dress and hung it in the wardrobe when Jay was in the washroom. She had covered herself so that she could surprise him but he ended up surprising her instead. (Frankly, he was being such a girl about the whole thing.) Now Sunayana had an idea about how this evening was gonna go and she was okay with the idea. She’d also kind of forgotten how intense Jay could get about things because he had been playing it very cool all evening.

“I don’t want to TALK!” Sunayana was now regretting having taken her clothes off. In her mind, it put him in a position of power. She moved the blanket off so he could see her. That should do the trick, she thought. But Jay seemed to be in a fervor of sorts. He got on the bed and held her hand.

“I hate you, Suni. I’ve hated you with all my heart and I’ve run out of hate. I know how bad you can be and I’m okay with that. You are maybe the only person who knows me for who I really am. I need to know if you are okay with that, with who I am.”

And before she could say anything, he was kissing her. “Am I okay with who he is?” Sunayana asked herself as her lips caressed those familiar lips. No, she was not okay with how he had treated her. She broke the kiss soon after the realization. And then she kissed him back.

Way back in 2006, when Jay and Sunayana had first kissed, they hadn’t been with anyone else and the kiss had felt heavenly. While a part of her chalked that up to love, another part of her always felt like it was because it was her first. But today, this kiss melted her away. And breaking away from Jay’s lips actually hurt, physically. That’s why she kissed him again. And again.

“I love you,” she whispered into his ears. He kissed her neck and told her how much he’d missed her. Jay and Sunayana were like two pieces of a puzzle. They just fit.

A night of passion and pleasure ensued.

Making love to someone after years feels different. Every touch, every caress, every kiss, every bite felt new, invigorating. They longed for each other all these years, without actually realizing that they did. Her taste captivated him like it used to and that feeling was like riding a wave, thrilling and satiating. Her body was so familiar yet so different. Her build felt different than it did the last time. Her hips were thicker and her thighs were leaner. Feeling him feeling her was one of the most exquisite feelings, one that she’d missed all these years.

They barely slept that night.

The morning after can be tricky and complicated. A feeling of guilt swept over Sunayana when she woke up. She had led him on. She had no intention of getting back with him but she knew that’s what he would expect now. A lot had happened between them but Sunayana knew that they could never be happy with each other. While her confession was real the night before, it didn’t sum up to anything. She’d always love him and he’d always love her. But this wasn’t a movie. There wasn’t a happy ending for these two.

Sunayana had left when Jay woke up.

She didn’t take his call. He didn’t call her twice. He knew she wouldn’t pick up.