16-04-2020, 02:06 PM
Meera looked at her husband stand up in protest at hearing what Gomathi had said. Her husband continued to surprise her. Anyone else in the same situation would have shown glee at this turn of events. The wife of the very person who had seduced his own wife is now proposing that he has sex with her in return and he had straightaway rejected the notion. Not for him the notion that this was the time to get revenge against the person who had done great harm to his own family life. At the very least he should have felt some degree of satisfaction that the person who had betrayed his trust has been punished by fate that, that person would not be able to father a child of his own. Here too he didn’t seem to be pleased about that either.
“Wha.. How… how did you know?” Saravanan asked.
“I had known from the time their illicit relationship ended,” Gomathi said.
Prabu was consoling the crying child which soon went back to sleep. Prabu did not look at them. He seemed intent only in taking care of his child but it was clear his ears were keenly listening to his wife.
“My husband came one day early from Chennai back then but he came home only late morning, in fact it was almost going to reach noon. I know there is no bus that comes back here at that time and so I asked the reason for him coming late. He just said that the bus was late that day.”
Gomathi looked at the two of them who were still puzzled how that alone led to her discovery of the affair.
“If you are wondering how could that alone have made me so suspicious as to lead me to find out everything then you are right. I didn’t think much of it then and had forgotten about it.”
Gomathi looked at Prabu who still was looking at their sleeping adopted child and patting her as she slept on his lap.
“Well after the many things that had happened between my husband and Meera and your knowledge of that too, I am also not too embarrassed to say what happened between me and my husband that afternoon. Gomathi took a deep breath then continued,” I wanted to have sex with my husband that afternoon. That’s when I discovered another thing that raised my suspicions.”
Meera was the one who now started feeling embarrassment as she feared that the second clue that Gomathi had got was somehow related to her.
“When my husband was making love to me, I had grabbed his buttocks,” Gomathi said this as a matter of fact, not feeling shy about relating something as personal as this to the two of them.
“I felt some sort of streaks of slight swelling on his flesh there. After sex when my husband quickly tied his dhoti around his waist, I happened to get a glance and saw about three stripes of reddish marks on both of his buttocks flesh.”
Meera’s face reddened in shame. She was being reminded of something she did not ever want to think about again. She felt sick inside. She dreaded how this must be hurting her husband again because it was her fingernails that had caused those streaks. She had been careful not to mark Prabu’s body now that he was married so she had grabbed his buttocks when she had her orgasm. That she though would be the non-visible part of his body. Yet it had not occurred to her that Prabu’s wife may also caress him there during their sex together.
“That raised my suspicions but at that time I thought my husband may have done something wrong when he was alone in Chennai. Even then too I really didn’t know for sure as there could be some logical explanation for the marks on him,” Gomathi continued.
“It was when you called him out the next day,” Gomathi looked at Saravanan as she said this. “I saw his face change and I thought something was very wrong. Even the day before when you had called my mother in law I saw how agitated she was when you had enquired about my husband.”
Saravanan could see how all the different events had slowly raised Prabu’s wife’s suspicions. She was an intelligent woman and her instincts had been alerted by these, chain of events.
“I didn’t know what to do actually after my husband had left to see you. I debated with myself on what I should do. My husband had gone on his motorbike so I had no chance of following him. On a hunch I decided to go to your house. I went via the back way and waited.”
Neither Saravanan nor Prabu had anticipated that Gomathi would have been so smart enough to have done an investigation like this. They were so immersed in the issue they had hoped to resolve once and for all that they had neglected to consider anything else.
“When I saw my husband approach your house, I knew that my instincts had been correct. My husband had glanced back a few times as he came to your house so I knew you were not far away but I could not see you. So, you must have been sufficiently far away enough to be out of sight.”
“I hid by the window on the side of your hall and could look inside. That’s when I heard everything from the conversation between my husband and your wife. I also learnt how you had tolerated everything for the sake of both your family and my husband’s family’s good name but primarily for the sake of your wife.”
“If you knew about everything at that time why didn’t you say or do anything then,” Saravanan asked.
Gomathi was silent for some time then started speaking again. “You must realise how much of a shock it was to me. I realised at that time that I was witnessing the end of the adulterous relationship between your wife and my husband. What had gone on between them was mostly before our marriage but the last time my husband had directly betrayed me too. I really did not know what to do. I was thinking about my parents, my family and my mother in law. I was thinking of the upheaval in everyone’s life if I made a big matter of the whole thing. I wrestled with my conscience on what to do.”
“Then what happened now. Why bring this all up now?” Saravanan asked.
“It was slowly gnawing within me. I struggled with myself without being able to confront my husband on the whole matter. Finally, I could not take it anymore. I had a huge confrontation with my husband. Though I knew what had happened I dragged every bit of the details of my husband’s affair with your wife.”
All these matters being put out in the open again was causing great distress to Meera. It once again starkly brought out her odious behaviour with Prabu. She was ashamed at how much she had sinned in seeking her own pleasures selfishly. Now her actions had not only deeply hurt her husband but it had also wounded another innocent woman.
“Do you know after hearing about all the details from my husband, my respect for you grew hugely. How you had acted with so much of dignity. How much you must have loved your wife to be able to tolerate something like this. I had always thought that a man in this type of situation would have killed himself or killed his wife and her lover, or both, but you were conscious of the tremendous disaster for those left behind by blind actions taken in haste and anger.”
Tears started automatically flowing from Meera’s eyes as once again someone reminded her of the immense sacrifice made by her husband and the love he had for her.
“It simply amazed me that if my husband had not come here again, you would have never revealed to your wife that you knew about her betrayal. You tolerated so much of humiliation and pain and you wanted your wife to be spared from any pain at all.”
Hearing this a sob escaped from Meera’s mouth. Saravanan was upset that all this was going to affect his wife badly again when Dr. Arul had made so much of slow in treating Meera.
“All that is over and done with now why are coming up with this atrocious idea now,” Saravanan said angrily.
“I have been giving serious thought to this for the past three to four months. I have had many arguments with my husband over this. For what he had done he has no moral right to argue against this. I feel deprived of the right to motherhood. He has no option but to respect my wishes. He would not be able to get away scot free if my family gets to know what he has done.”
Saravanan listened impatiently to what Gomathi was saying.
“Then go ahead and chose somebody else, maybe even some member within your greater family. Why me,” Saravanan retorted angrily.
“Why you… because of the type of man you are. Anyone else in your position would be willingly ready to seek revenge for what my husband had done. You don’t have animosity towards him. You are a caring person with a high degree of honour. These are the types of qualities I would want my child to have.”
“Another reason is that, only through you this could be kept a secret and there would be no problems in the future.”
Saravanan was suddenly very quiet. One could see that he was thinking deeply and gathering his thoughts. Meera too had a great degree of anxiety on what her husband would say but she really could not quite make out what she was feeling. There were conflicting emotions within her. Saravanan started speaking slowly, patiently and firmly.
“You must know Gomathi the reason why I did not seek to gain any revenge against your husband is because he is a person of no consequence to me. I believe everyone will pay for their actions one way or another eventually. I demean myself to his level if I find solace in any sort of revenge.”
All three of them were listening to Saravanan speak intently. He was revealing himself to them for the first time and they are learning the make up of his character. Even Meera after living so many years of her life with him is getting to learn an aspect of his character for the first time.
“I believe that one’s own righteous behaviour is that which defines a person. No body else’s behaviour should shape your own character. I have my principles. I believe in being true to them. As I said your husband doesn’t matter to me. I could not care less what happens to him and it’s not my duty to punish him in anyway. There will come a time that he himself would deeply and truly regret his actions if he already hasn’t.”
“What matters to me is my family. The future of my children. The happiness of my wife and children. You will not want to hurt any person that you truly care for and love. My wife may have made mistakes in her life. I may even be partly responsible for those mistakes to happen but I had a believe that her love for me had never diminished in anyway. We now have a chance to rebuild our lives. Dwelling on wrong doing and the past is never going to be of any good for the future. I love my wife and I can’t just think of being with another woman because of what happened in the past. Otherwise what’s the difference between me and Prabu.”
Saravanan had in fact degraded Prabu without directly saying anything degrading about him.
Meera’s heart broke on hearing her husband speak. She had a diamond with her yet she had not learnt to treasure it. How could she ever deserve such a person as this. Her heart swelled with love for her husband. What can she do.. what should she do… Meera was lost now more than ever.
“Wha.. How… how did you know?” Saravanan asked.
“I had known from the time their illicit relationship ended,” Gomathi said.
Prabu was consoling the crying child which soon went back to sleep. Prabu did not look at them. He seemed intent only in taking care of his child but it was clear his ears were keenly listening to his wife.
“My husband came one day early from Chennai back then but he came home only late morning, in fact it was almost going to reach noon. I know there is no bus that comes back here at that time and so I asked the reason for him coming late. He just said that the bus was late that day.”
Gomathi looked at the two of them who were still puzzled how that alone led to her discovery of the affair.
“If you are wondering how could that alone have made me so suspicious as to lead me to find out everything then you are right. I didn’t think much of it then and had forgotten about it.”
Gomathi looked at Prabu who still was looking at their sleeping adopted child and patting her as she slept on his lap.
“Well after the many things that had happened between my husband and Meera and your knowledge of that too, I am also not too embarrassed to say what happened between me and my husband that afternoon. Gomathi took a deep breath then continued,” I wanted to have sex with my husband that afternoon. That’s when I discovered another thing that raised my suspicions.”
Meera was the one who now started feeling embarrassment as she feared that the second clue that Gomathi had got was somehow related to her.
“When my husband was making love to me, I had grabbed his buttocks,” Gomathi said this as a matter of fact, not feeling shy about relating something as personal as this to the two of them.
“I felt some sort of streaks of slight swelling on his flesh there. After sex when my husband quickly tied his dhoti around his waist, I happened to get a glance and saw about three stripes of reddish marks on both of his buttocks flesh.”
Meera’s face reddened in shame. She was being reminded of something she did not ever want to think about again. She felt sick inside. She dreaded how this must be hurting her husband again because it was her fingernails that had caused those streaks. She had been careful not to mark Prabu’s body now that he was married so she had grabbed his buttocks when she had her orgasm. That she though would be the non-visible part of his body. Yet it had not occurred to her that Prabu’s wife may also caress him there during their sex together.
“That raised my suspicions but at that time I thought my husband may have done something wrong when he was alone in Chennai. Even then too I really didn’t know for sure as there could be some logical explanation for the marks on him,” Gomathi continued.
“It was when you called him out the next day,” Gomathi looked at Saravanan as she said this. “I saw his face change and I thought something was very wrong. Even the day before when you had called my mother in law I saw how agitated she was when you had enquired about my husband.”
Saravanan could see how all the different events had slowly raised Prabu’s wife’s suspicions. She was an intelligent woman and her instincts had been alerted by these, chain of events.
“I didn’t know what to do actually after my husband had left to see you. I debated with myself on what I should do. My husband had gone on his motorbike so I had no chance of following him. On a hunch I decided to go to your house. I went via the back way and waited.”
Neither Saravanan nor Prabu had anticipated that Gomathi would have been so smart enough to have done an investigation like this. They were so immersed in the issue they had hoped to resolve once and for all that they had neglected to consider anything else.
“When I saw my husband approach your house, I knew that my instincts had been correct. My husband had glanced back a few times as he came to your house so I knew you were not far away but I could not see you. So, you must have been sufficiently far away enough to be out of sight.”
“I hid by the window on the side of your hall and could look inside. That’s when I heard everything from the conversation between my husband and your wife. I also learnt how you had tolerated everything for the sake of both your family and my husband’s family’s good name but primarily for the sake of your wife.”
“If you knew about everything at that time why didn’t you say or do anything then,” Saravanan asked.
Gomathi was silent for some time then started speaking again. “You must realise how much of a shock it was to me. I realised at that time that I was witnessing the end of the adulterous relationship between your wife and my husband. What had gone on between them was mostly before our marriage but the last time my husband had directly betrayed me too. I really did not know what to do. I was thinking about my parents, my family and my mother in law. I was thinking of the upheaval in everyone’s life if I made a big matter of the whole thing. I wrestled with my conscience on what to do.”
“Then what happened now. Why bring this all up now?” Saravanan asked.
“It was slowly gnawing within me. I struggled with myself without being able to confront my husband on the whole matter. Finally, I could not take it anymore. I had a huge confrontation with my husband. Though I knew what had happened I dragged every bit of the details of my husband’s affair with your wife.”
All these matters being put out in the open again was causing great distress to Meera. It once again starkly brought out her odious behaviour with Prabu. She was ashamed at how much she had sinned in seeking her own pleasures selfishly. Now her actions had not only deeply hurt her husband but it had also wounded another innocent woman.
“Do you know after hearing about all the details from my husband, my respect for you grew hugely. How you had acted with so much of dignity. How much you must have loved your wife to be able to tolerate something like this. I had always thought that a man in this type of situation would have killed himself or killed his wife and her lover, or both, but you were conscious of the tremendous disaster for those left behind by blind actions taken in haste and anger.”
Tears started automatically flowing from Meera’s eyes as once again someone reminded her of the immense sacrifice made by her husband and the love he had for her.
“It simply amazed me that if my husband had not come here again, you would have never revealed to your wife that you knew about her betrayal. You tolerated so much of humiliation and pain and you wanted your wife to be spared from any pain at all.”
Hearing this a sob escaped from Meera’s mouth. Saravanan was upset that all this was going to affect his wife badly again when Dr. Arul had made so much of slow in treating Meera.
“All that is over and done with now why are coming up with this atrocious idea now,” Saravanan said angrily.
“I have been giving serious thought to this for the past three to four months. I have had many arguments with my husband over this. For what he had done he has no moral right to argue against this. I feel deprived of the right to motherhood. He has no option but to respect my wishes. He would not be able to get away scot free if my family gets to know what he has done.”
Saravanan listened impatiently to what Gomathi was saying.
“Then go ahead and chose somebody else, maybe even some member within your greater family. Why me,” Saravanan retorted angrily.
“Why you… because of the type of man you are. Anyone else in your position would be willingly ready to seek revenge for what my husband had done. You don’t have animosity towards him. You are a caring person with a high degree of honour. These are the types of qualities I would want my child to have.”
“Another reason is that, only through you this could be kept a secret and there would be no problems in the future.”
Saravanan was suddenly very quiet. One could see that he was thinking deeply and gathering his thoughts. Meera too had a great degree of anxiety on what her husband would say but she really could not quite make out what she was feeling. There were conflicting emotions within her. Saravanan started speaking slowly, patiently and firmly.
“You must know Gomathi the reason why I did not seek to gain any revenge against your husband is because he is a person of no consequence to me. I believe everyone will pay for their actions one way or another eventually. I demean myself to his level if I find solace in any sort of revenge.”
All three of them were listening to Saravanan speak intently. He was revealing himself to them for the first time and they are learning the make up of his character. Even Meera after living so many years of her life with him is getting to learn an aspect of his character for the first time.
“I believe that one’s own righteous behaviour is that which defines a person. No body else’s behaviour should shape your own character. I have my principles. I believe in being true to them. As I said your husband doesn’t matter to me. I could not care less what happens to him and it’s not my duty to punish him in anyway. There will come a time that he himself would deeply and truly regret his actions if he already hasn’t.”
“What matters to me is my family. The future of my children. The happiness of my wife and children. You will not want to hurt any person that you truly care for and love. My wife may have made mistakes in her life. I may even be partly responsible for those mistakes to happen but I had a believe that her love for me had never diminished in anyway. We now have a chance to rebuild our lives. Dwelling on wrong doing and the past is never going to be of any good for the future. I love my wife and I can’t just think of being with another woman because of what happened in the past. Otherwise what’s the difference between me and Prabu.”
Saravanan had in fact degraded Prabu without directly saying anything degrading about him.
Meera’s heart broke on hearing her husband speak. She had a diamond with her yet she had not learnt to treasure it. How could she ever deserve such a person as this. Her heart swelled with love for her husband. What can she do.. what should she do… Meera was lost now more than ever.
![[+]](https://xossipy.com/themes/sharepoint/collapse_collapsed.png)