Misc. Erotica BODY OF SIN

[N D]

PROLOGUE

It was a little after eleven and the calling bell broke the soft sound of jazz playing through two Bose speakers in the front hall. The owner of the house was busy in kitchen, putting the finishing touches to a steak that he had cooked, the layer of pepper and crushed rock salt, when the bell rang. Akash wiped his hand on the apron he wore, glanced at the time as he walked out to the door, the second ring longer and louder. He opened the door.
She was dressed in yellow, the softness of the nearly transparent sari, hugged her figure.
“You cooking…” she asked as she barged in, walking into the small bar, looked around, pulled out a Cutty Sark, poured a large and splashed cold water from the small bar fridge.
“Bad day…” Akash asked as he went back to the steak, he had few more spices to add.
“That smells good…”
“Can I cut a piece for you…”
“What are you having it with…”
“Steak, Mashed potatoes and beans… wine probably…”
“Nah! I’m fine…” She added as she pulled the chair by the dinning table, sat on it.
Akash went back to adding the final touches to his steak, spicing it up to his taste, grabbed the vessel from the stove, put a dollop of the mashed potato, still steaming. He neatly placed the beans around, few strings of it, added a pinch of salt. He took a sip of the wine refilling his glass as he walked to the dinning table.
She had sat on his chair, but today he wasn’t going to watch the television, so it really didn't matter. He turned down the jazz music and placed the plate on the table, with the cutlery he had grabbed from the shelf.
He cut a small piece of the juicy steak and took a bite, a little more spice, maybe it wasn’t late. She pulled the plate towards her side of the table and used a spoon to take a little of the mashed potato, she then used the knife to cut through steak, bit into it.
“A little less pepper and more salt, but perfect…” she opined as she pushed the plate back to were he sat, still lost in her own world.
“Having a bad day…” he asked.
“Why else would I come here, he reached an hour back drunk and I didn’t want the repeat of last month…”
Akash knew what had happened last month, he decided it was best not to mention it at that moment, just nodding his head getting back to his dinner.
“I don’t even remember when was the last time he cooked for me? He never steps into the kitchen, beneath him apparently, men in his family have lived their whole lives never entering the kitchen, even seeing, fucking crap” she cursed, stirring the drink in her glass.
Akash looked at her, she wasn’t staring at him or talking to him either, it were as though he was in the middle of a conversation she was having with herself. He didn’t like the way she looked, he knew he had always had a crush on her and she knew it too and moments like these the ugly fangs of temptation showed up. He hated how she could charm him at her will, manipulate and play with his emotions. It was something he hated, the only thing probably he hated about her. No he didn’t hate that about her, he didn’t, she liked to control people around her especially those who had a boyish infatuation on her and she knew very well that he was one among the many.
Even the way he spoke betrayed it.
He didn’t know why he never felt a defenseless wreck with anyone else.

Akash was a fashion photographer by profession, a famous one at that, most fashion and film magazines across the country and few international magazines too had carried his photo on their cover. It had paid for a comfortable house removed from the city. A beautiful view, an old vintage car that stood out in the metallic junk of the city, a lovely garden in the front and a kitchen garden in the backyard, a small comfortable house with a beautiful view of the hills and the paddy fields. The birds and sunlight would wake him up instead of the electronic cry of a mobile phone, fresh air breezed through the open windows and the on rainy days it wasn’t the garbage that filled the drains, but the leaves and petals from the garden. It was a sight to behold on one of those cold foggy mornings when the thick cloud of fog clung on to the hills till the sun was well up in the sky.

“I was afraid to come here..” She paused, sipping her whiskey, placing the glass on a toaster, looking out at the front table. Without being told he knew what she was looking for, he pulled out the pack of smokes and handed it to her, along with his vintage zippo.

“I always liked this…” she stared at the zippo, leaving her previous sentence unfinished. She always did that, picking up words and going on tangential thoughts, leaving the listener with more questions than answers and few painful moments of isolated misery before she finally came back to what she had left unsaid. But it wasn’t always for her to come back, some sentences remained unanswered.
Today wasn’t one of those days.

“So” she went back to the what she had left unsaid after a good few minutes talking about the lighter. “I was worried you’d have some model or actress for the weekend.”

It had happened one time, that too many years back when she was only engaged and about to get married and had visited him at home only to find a famous actress walking out of the bedroom  in a bath robe with her hair disheveled and clearly unkempt. 

He didn’t reply to her, since he knew that would start another line of questions which would never end. Remaining quiet he finished his dinner, chewing on the last strings of beans as he  excused himself and walked to the kitchen to wash the plates. It was Sunday tomorrow, the maid had her day off, he rinsed the plate, washed it in warm water and wiped it before keeping it on the stand along with the other plates.

The longer he stayed away from her, the better it was for him, she was a ticking bomb, the manifestation of every undesirable thought in him. He always felt trapped in a straight jacket when she was around, even socially, he was never himself. Always on defensive, never free with his words or thoughts, why was he scared of her, something he never understood about himself.

Never!

She sat there, the queen of everything she gazed, taking in the beautiful view of the night sky through the huge glass wall of the front hall.

He pushed the chair in, turned the lights of the hall.

“Leave it off…” she said, covering her eyes as though the gentle glow of the light would have melted her skin, a tad bit dramatic he thought as he switched the light off. He did as the Queen desired, silently looking out at the sky from were he sat, on an uncomfortable bean bag, wondering were it was going to go, how wild were his thoughts going to get.

“Akash talk to me…”

He turned around, she was now leaning on the couch, with her legs stretched on to the glass table, the sari laying lazily over her slender long feet.

“What…”

“Who are you working with nowadays…”

She was always interested to know.

“Just a shoot with few models in Mauritius…”

“Oh wow! You never told me that…” she added, the excitement was obviously fake, he had already told her few weeks back as a passing remark but he was sure she hadn’t heard him. She preferred being heard to than hearing. A woman like that would have never gotten anywhere with a man, any man, unless it was her, she would, she could, only she could. An intoxicating mix of charm and innocence with the right amount of sexual energy, moments with her were like walking on a tight rope high up in the sky, a gently gush of air would throw even the most self restrained men off the rope.

“Models?”

“Brazilian… for some calendar there…”

“Ah so bikini’s and beaches… your specialty…”

It wasn’t his specialty, that was profile photography and fashion photography, but given how well the brands paid to photograph such calendars and events, he could not say no to them so he always had few assignments spread over the year. She’d call it Bikini’s and Beaches even though he termed it assignments.

“I’m bored…” she yawned stretching her arms, reaching for a second cigarette, she lit it and took a puff, stepping off the couch and walking into his house. It wasn’t particularly huge house, he wanted it in quite a particular way, a beautiful view of the hills, the morning sun and the paddy fields. Two bedrooms on the ground floor and the big bed room on the first. A working gym, a steaming room with an exercise cycle affixed to a corner, his study with a library of large collection of non-fictional and old plays and theater books, few about classical western music and jazz. The odd room out was his home studio, not that he invited anyone for pictures, but there were days when he’d like to tinker with lights and shadows, with macro-photography and once in a while scan through old magazine covers trying to figure out how the photographer would have set the the frame and composed it before finally taking the picture. The task would have been very difficult in a reel camera, these days the digital made it very ease. It was the only room he never allowed anyone unless it was for a work or assignment, none of his friends had even seen it, or the few girls friends he brought home or anyone else for that matter.

But she, she was different, the queen of everything she gazed, she stepped in without even bothering to tell him. She knew the combination of the door she had got it from him many months ago just when he had built his house after spending a considerable portion of his savings.

“Wow…”

Had she gone in smoking the cigarette, Akash hurried up the stairs and there she was in the middle of the carpeted floor, taping ashes onto an ash tray she had in her other hand.

“When did you take this…” she pointed at the image of a model.

“A week back…” Akash added.

“She is gorgeous…”

Of course she was, she had won Miss Colombia six months back, the model in the picture.

“I love it in black and white…” she added, still staring at the image.

He remembered the shoot, it was in Paris, he had only landed that morning and he was approached by this agent who wanted to make a portfolio for a Miss Colombia interested in getting into fashion. He was still having jet lag but he relented, knowing well that Latin America was a market he had yet to work extensively and he was dying to, given how many projects they had and the way they paid for a good job.


She moved from one image to another, one of a beautiful woman hoisted by two well oiled men with her long legs resting on the forehead of another man kneeling in front of her. The woman was naked, yet the men had positioned in such a way none of her body with exception of her beautiful face and long leg could be seen. It was a particularly good photograph, with striking colours and the black velvet background. “Queen of Egypt” he called it and had framed it in
his study, among the very few photos that he liked, in his wall of pride.

“When are you going to take pictures of me…” she asked.

He smiled, she had been the Queen of dreams and nightmares for years, the perfect model, but he was inexperienced those days, he was learning photography, it was different today.

“Some day… let me find time…”

“How about tomorrow…”

“I’m flying off in the evening…”

“You have the whole morning to yourself don’t you…”

“Packing…”

“I’ve seen you packing, I’m sure you have already finished it… don’t be a dick about it…”

He didn’t reply and she saw it as an opportunity to give her own ideas rambling one after the other, fixated with going to the hills while the light streamed down thick woods. Little did she know that a single picture sometimes took few hours to even set, it was always difficult when working with professionals who rarely had time and never bothered to care about how challenging getting the right photograph was, the smart ones always arrived late.

“Were did that nude photograph go… you know with the woman’s breast and all…”

He shook his head, ‘Fountain of Youth’ he had named it, she knew the name too, it was written in a plaque beneath the photograph and she had quipped a dozen times complaining and cribbing about why he still had that one picture.

“Re-framing… I wanted it in a bigger frame…”

He knew she would disapprove of it, but he loved the photo, there was a story behind it, probably the only story she didn’t know about him.

“Why… it’ll look odd among these beautiful pictures…” she looked around the rest of the small pictures in frames, ones that hadn’t made it to the Wall of Pride, but were still good. She spotted one she liked and pulled it out of it’s place, staring at it.

“Isn’t it your car…” she asked.

Akash nodded his head.

“I want a picture like this…” she replied.

“That was done in the valley’s up north…”

“You can find a proper substitution for that…”

“Much of it is in it's colours, the snow, the red, the yellow, the shades of orange…”

“Big deal… you are so good at it right, you’ll figure out something… this one I want…”

“How about tomorrow…”

“It’s not easy as you think…”

She placed the small framed photo on the table, it would remain there till he put it back, it was always like that with her.

“If you don’t want to take a picture you just have to say… don’t make excuses.”

He sighed, there was no reasoning with her, never.

“Let me return from Mauritius, I’ll have few days free… I’ll call you…”

“Thanks..” She grinned, “Oh wait! The last time you promised to take a picture, I’m still waiting for the call by the way.”

She knew why he hadn’t called and she knew very well why he would not have called, not for photographing her. Why was she torturing him like this?

Why?

It was in her nature, it was what defined her, the way she controlled those around her. Taking a deep breath, he observed as she carefully stubbed the cigarette in the ash tray and placed the it on the desk, just next to the small framed photograph.

He took a breath.

“I promise this time I will…”

“I’ve heard enough…” she added, “many promises! Many I will’s”

He didn’t reply she knew why he avoided him, she should know it by now.

“When are you returning from…” she turned around, “Were are you headed…”

“Mauritius…” Sure she remembered it, she just had to show she didn’t care were he went, or what he did.

“Next Friday…” he added, “I’ll land by three in the morning…”

“Three… okay… I’ll give you the whole day to sleep… I’ll call you in the evening…” she glanced at the time, it was a little to midnight, “Now drop me home…”

He quietly waited for her to walk out of the room before he grabbed the ash tray, the last thing he wanted was ash on the carpet. He silently followed her into her BMW 7 Series. Stepped in and throttled out of his house.

The Queen of Everything her eyes fell on, she was his puppet master.