Silver Screen Dream (2 page)

Rahul smiled sweetly as he showed the once again dressed Panya out of the door then sighed and shook his head as he pushed it to behind her.

“How’s that wife look now?” I asked as he turned around.

“I’m not going to get married, Johnny. Not now, not ever, and certainly not to some simpering fool Dad decided in his apparent wisdom to betroth me to. I’ll leave the damn country before I’ll get married.”

 “All right, all right, I get your point. But you know I can’t do anything to help you. I have to follow your father’s command.”

“I know,” he sighed. “But you won’t make me go and marry her, will you?”

“Oh no, Sir. I can’t do that. I was only ordered to make sure you didn’t try and marry anyone else. I’m not a heavy, I’m a Djinn.”

“Have you ever been married, Johnny?” Rahul asked as he opened the small fridge and pulled out a green bottle filled with ice cold beer.

“Not married, no,” I replied.

“But you’ve been in love?”

 “Maybe,” I replied cagily. I don’t share personal details with humans. It never works out well.

“I don’t think I ever have,” he sighed as he flicked the beer cap off with a bottle opener. “I don’t know if I ever want to fall in love, either.”

“Fool,” I snapped. “I’m a mostly evil and debauched Djinn and I want to fall in love. Love makes it all worthwhile.”

“Yeah, but it ties you down. I don’t want to ever settle. If I marry a girl, I’ll have to fuck her for the rest of my life. What If I get bored of her?”

 “You don’t get bored of your soul mate, you idiot. “

“Oh, shut up, Johnny. Who asked for your opinion, anyway?”

I didn’t reply. It wasn’t worth the waste of my breath. I knew I was right, though. He’d not see the truth in my words until he actually fell in love, and I couldn’t do anything about that. It’s a rule, Djinn’s can’t make people fall in love.

Chapter Two

Laura

I hear Johnny is telling you this tale from his point of view. Well, as much as I love Johnny, he is a Djinn, and I don’t think he has the flair and talent needed to relate my story to you. So I’m going to tell it, too. We might have some overlap, so excuse us, but this way I know you’ll get all the pertinent facts. So let’s see, where should I start? Ah, yes, I know the perfect beginning.

* * * *

“Rahul Khan is coming here?” I squealed.

“Yes, on Friday. It’s some Bollywood film launch,” my manager confirmed.

“Oh, please let me seat them or take tickets or make them tea or anything, please, Tony.”

Tony cocked his eyebrow at me and shrugged. “Well, I don’t see why not. Why are you so eager about it, anyway?”

“Oh, I used to watch Bollywood films with
Nani
when I was little, so I like the genre. I’d love to meet some of the stars.”

“Well, fair enough then, love. No one else has asked me about it, so you can be the Welcome Wagon. Stand outside the doors, take drink orders, that kind of thing.”

“Oh, thanks, Tony, you’re a star.” I stood up on my tippy toes and kissed his cheek.

“Urgh, less of that, less of that,” he scolded with a lighthearted wink. “Now, you go off and see to the ladies’ bogs, all right?”

I didn’t even mind clearing up the ladies’ rooms after a busy Friday night. I was going to meet Rahul Khan. It might seem strange for a white girl to be dreaming lustily of an Indian Bollywood star, but I don’t care. He’s the most handsome man I’ve ever seen, and I fell in love with him the moment I watched him in
Hamesha
with my
Nani
when I was fourteen.

Again, you might wonder why I have an Indian grandma when I’m as white as a virgin’s wedding dress, but she wasn’t really my grandma. She babysat me when I was younger, and she had half a dozen grandkids who all called her ‘
Nani
’, so I did, too. We used to gather around her, snuggle up on her battered sofa or sit on the raggedy rug, and she’d put on the latest video she had bought from the Bollywood film club.

It was amazing that all the children, from the smallest to the eldest, would sit and watch in stunned silence. We loved the Bollywood romances as much as
Nani
did. When we were young, we liked the colours and the dancing girls and the sparkles, and as we grew older, we’d appreciate the beauty of the stars and the dramatic backdrops. It didn’t matter that we’d know what was going to happen, because every Bollywood plot is essentially the same. We would eagerly enjoy seeing the tiny differences that made each film unique.

I’d wanted to visit India as a child, and my hopes had been high until I met Danny and my life got turned upside down. I had just started university—I was studying Hindi and Urdu and had hopes of becoming a translator. But then I met Danny and I dropped out of uni before the end of the first year.

I regretted it, I really did. Even more so because the stupid bastard dumped me not long after I gave up my dreams for him. He was a drain on my resources, but I didn’t realise it until it was too late. I was flattered. He was hot, he was the guy on the street all the girls fancied and he picked me, chubby Laura with the glasses and the faraway look in her eye. I realised later that all he’d loved me for was the free admittance to the cinema.

From turning seventeen, I’d held a job at the local Cinematic. It wasn’t fun, it wasn’t often interesting, but it paid me and I could get in to see the films for free. I could take someone in with me, too, if I liked. So once Danny’d had his fill of Hollywood blockbusters, he dumped me.

I know, I was stupid. I was blinded to the truth. I really did think he loved me, and when he’d said we’d live together and marry and he’d look after me so I didn’t need to go to that stupid university any more, I’d believed him.

I couldn’t get back on the course, having missed too much lesson time, and could no longer apply for the grant to go. I couldn’t raise the university fees, so I was stuck in my cinema job. Tony upgraded me to a full-time member of staff, and a good chunk of my salary went into the university fund every week. It would only take three or four years to save up the fees. I was determined to make something of my life, even if it took years of manual labour to do it. I had already completed two years of cinema work, and my education fund was growing slowly bigger with every pay packet. I kept my head down and worked hard because I knew it was the only way to get what I wanted.

That night I waltzed and shimmied around the ladies’ loos with my mop. I imagined myself dressed in a beautiful, bejewelled sari, singing and dancing to the man I loved, Rahul. I continued the fantasy that night in my bed. It started where Bollywood films stop, in the bedroom.

I imagined voluminous fabrics and rich gold and reds in a room fit for an Indian princess. I pretended my bed was actually double the size and overflowing with soft as eiderdown pillows and that my nightshirt was a diaphanous shift that revealed more than it hid.

In my mind’s eye, I lay in bed awaiting Rahul, my lover. He walked in and I gasped with delight. The setting Delhi sun caressed the dark richness of his skin and glinted off the startling blue of his eyes. He stripped as he moved towards the bed. Expensive materials only a king could afford fell to the ground until, naked and proudly erect, he reached me.

He climbed on the bed with me, and as I imagined his kisses and caresses, I insinuated a finger along my cleft and rubbed my damp pearl in delight. He spoke words of love and comfort as he removed my shift, reassuring me I was the most beautiful maiden he had ever seen. Prettier than the lilies and sweeter smelling than jasmine.

He was gentle at first when he took me, but as my real fingers danced more urgently over my clit, his lovemaking became more frenzied. I came, imagining he was declaring his love as he filled me with his seed. As I lay panting in my bed, the layers of fantasy melted away, and once again I was in my little, two-roomed flat on the age-old bed with creaky springs.

I sighed heavily, but one thing made me smile. I was going to meet Rahul, a real live Bollywood star.
Nani
would be so jealous. It still hurt to think of her—she had passed away suddenly the year before. I missed her terribly. She had only looked after me until I was fifteen, but I would still go around once a week to watch a film with her. I had visited her the night before she passed, in fact. We had watched her favourite, old Bollywood film,
Amar Akbar Anthony
,
and she had told me she was proud of me.

I guess I’m lucky. I got to tell her I loved her and gave her cuddly frame one last hug goodbye, but I still missed her. Mum is my mum, and I love her to bits, but she has never had much time for me. While I was growing up, she did what she could to keep us afloat financially. She was an air hostess—still is, in fact—and has always worked so hard just to support us. I appreciate that, I do. But my
Nani
was the one who fed my imagination, the one who was always there when I needed her. I guess she was just like a grandmother. I’d never known my own grandmother as she’d died when I was a toddler. I’d be forever grateful that I’d had my
Nani
.

I dreamt of her that night. She smiled at me and told me to kiss Rahul on her behalf. Then she told me to pinch his botty for good measure and cackled as she always would when she said something a bit naughty. I woke up with a smile on my face and a sad ache in my heart.

I wished I could wear something a bit more exciting than my usual uniform. The drab, navy blue with the gaudy red highlights at the neck and on the arms made me look like I had a really bad case of sunstroke. I made sure it was ironed and that it looked as good as it could. I was not going to meet the man of my erotic dreams with a wrinkled shirt or ketchup-stained trousers.

I had to start work at two o’clock, and the premiere wasn’t due to start until seven. I don’t know how I managed to keep myself occupied for five hours before the stars arrived.

“Would you stop looking at your watch,” Karen humphed. “You’re driving me batty.”

“Sorry.” I slammed the arm with my watch on behind my back. “I just can’t wait for tonight.”

“Why the hell are you so excited about some weird, foreign film?”

“It’s not weird, it’s Bollywood.”

“Whatever,” Karen sighed. “But it’s for Indians, isn’t it? I don’t think I’d get it.”

“They have subtitles.” I thumbed through the serviettes on the counter in front of me. “And they’re not that different to American or Brit films.”

“Whatever, it’s not my thing at all.”

“Fine. All the apathy for Bollywood around here means I get to welcome them tonight. I’m going to talk to Rahul Khan.” My cheeks felt hot, and I couldn’t help beaming like a star-struck idiot.

“So you fancy him, then?” Karen’s gift for understatement was showing itself again.

“Well, you could put it like that,” I laughed. “My
Nani
always said he was a nice boy and I should marry him, so I’m just trying to do her proud.”

“I bet you will,” Karen smiled. “I don’t understand you, but I still think you’re pretty cool.”

And that was why I liked Karen. She wasn’t the sharpest implement in the toolbox, but she was sincere.

“Aw, bless your heart.” I smiled. “I’ll do my best for
Nani
, but I’m not sure Rahul will be impressed by a short, chubby, white girl.”

“Oh, you never know, he’s probably sick of slim, Indian beauties. You might be in with a chance.”

“Thanks, I think.”

I have never had minutes pass so slowly since that day. I swear time slowed to a snail’s pace as the day’s shift seemed to go on for a fortnight. I slipped into the ladies’ room to freshen up somewhat half an hour before they were expected, and as I looked at myself in the mirror, I fantasised about how it would go.

I had it all planned out. He’d arrive and walk down the red carpet towards me. There’d be dancing ladies in two lines parallel to him, and they’d shimmy suggestively and smile sweetly as his gaze met mine.

He’d be charming, I’d giggle and flutter my magically extended lashes, then the power of attraction would just pull our lips together in a blindingly brilliant first kiss. There would be a musical crescendo, and we’d find ourselves running along a white, sandy beach hand in hand, laughing and joking and generally being happy fools in love.

I would have liked to have taken the fantasy further, so we’d end up with sand in interesting nooks and crannies, but I didn’t want to miss my opportunity in real life by spending too much time developing my love story in the dream world.

“Where have you been?” Tony scolded. “The bloody Indians are coming!”

“Tony, stop it. That isn’t nice.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean anything by it, I’m just flustered. I’ve no idea what they might want. Should I nip over to the Bombay Masala and pick up some
poppadoms
?”

“Tony, they’re just the same as the people who come here every day. Calm down, there’s popcorn and soft drinks here, or there’s the bar if they want something stronger. We’ve got it covered, relax.”

“I wish,” he scoffed. “Regional office have been on to me three times this week to tell me how important this launch is to them. It could be the beginning of something big, apparently.”

“We’re fine.” I patted his arm to comfort his nerves. “We’ve put up the beautiful, billowy sari material they sent us, we’ve got up the posters, and the screen they’re in is spotless, we’ve checked and double checked it. It’s going to be great, I promise.”

“Well, you’re my secret weapon. You actually know about the films. I’m going to expect you to do a lot of the talking, all right? Don’t let me down.”

“I won’t,” I smiled. Outwardly, I appeared calm, but inside my stomach twisted, my heart thumped and I panicked silently.

“Right, I’m going to go out front. You stay here, greet them, take drink orders then hand them off to Karen to take to their seats. You know there’s going to be a party of ten, right?”

“Yes, Tony.” I smiled. “You better get out there before they arrive.”

Tony flustered off and out of the front doors. I could see folk out there, quite a crowd, really. I knew people would want to come to this premiere. Bollywood has a huge following in the UK. I took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. I was nervous, excited and scared half to death all at the same time.