Spice and Smoke (10 page)

“
Ah-ha.
” She made a typical Bengali sound of disbelief. “As if you two would do anything together besides French kiss in the hallway and scare the hotel staff?”

“It’s Punjabi-Brit kissing, thank you very much.” After this pronouncement, her husband and his lover shared a long, indecipherable look and an intimate laugh.

Harsh came off the bed, taking her green
Benarasi
silk sari and placing it atop the dresser. He squeezed her hands, reminding her that they, too, had an intimacy now. “You know, Trishna is right. This is really not a bad idea, the watching.”

“
Arré
, wow!” Avi brayed with mirth. “Who knew Mathur the Monk was a voyeur? All your secrets are starting to come out,
na
? I knew you weren’t so damn perfect!”

Michael shushed him, primarily by draping Trish’s petticoat over his head like a veil. “No, I get it, mate. Perhaps if we chum up with Viki and Sam they won’t go too crazy. We can keep them in line.”

“I don’t know.” Trish shook her head. “You know ‘the blind leading the blind’? I am thinking this will be ‘the
bewakoof
leading the even more
bewakoof
’.”

“What does that make you?” Harsh gently grasped her chin, staring into her eyes in that way that melted the hearts of schoolgirls. “I think it means you are the
queen
of fools,” he teased.

Trishna surprised even herself when she smiled at the designation. When it came to this pack of crazies, being the queen wasn’t the worst thing in the world.
Nahin
, in fact, it was pretty damn fantastic.

Chapter Thirteen

Nishta runs across the parapets, straining to see her lover riding away towards certain doom. Her father’s man through and through, Shankar steps into her path, stopping her with a firm hand on her shoulder. “
Tehro
,” he says.”Stop. Do not shame your family with such displays. Alok is the enemy. He will only bring you pain.”

She looks at his unyielding countenance, a mix of agony and sympathy on her proud features. “You’ve never known love, Shankar. Else you would know that even the pain of it is welcome.”

Vikram deleted his SMS before sliding his mobile back into his pocket. There had been two text messages from his secretary, begging his forgiveness for the colossal blunder of booking him on
The Raj
without looking at the fine print.
Bahenchod.
He wasn’t getting a bonus this year; that was for sure.
Keep me away from Sam
was practically the only rule he had for anyone who worked for, or with, him. It was simple. It was absolute. It was all that stood between him and ruin.

Now here he was, in Bihar, with that one rule broken and Sam so close he could
feel
him.

They’d met on one of those tours of America. Bollywood Extravaganza or some such nonsense. They hadn’t been the headliners, of course. When you had a few Khans on the list, Vikram Malhotra was just second string…and Sam Khanna a massive liability. Back then, Sam’s reputation had been at its absolute worst—and every bit of it completely deserved. The promoter had known Viki’s reputation for being disciplined and had begged him to keep an eye on Sam, lest he trash a hotel and cause the tour bad publicity.

He’d kept an eye on him…and eventually more. Somewhere along the way they’d struck up an easy friendship, and somewhere between New York and Chicago, he’d woken up with Sam’s mouth on him. That smug, self-satisfied mouth that looked like it only knew how to curl in disdain…at two o’clock in the morning, wrapped around his cock, it was a thing of beauty. Sucking, licking, scoring his balls with teasing teeth.
Fuck.
He hadn’t even known for certain Sam was gay until that moment. It was kind of incontrovertible proof.

Just like doing this film was incontrovertible proof that Viki was
ek number ka
idiot. He stared across the hotel lounge, swallowing hard. Sam was at the bar, a glass of something clear at his elbow. Vikram told himself that it wasn’t his job to care if the something was gin or club soda. It hadn’t been his job for three years,
na
? But still his stomach twisted. Still the whispered prayer snuck from his lips, asking Shiva to watch over one of his wild ones. Then, he laughed to himself, massaging the already tight space between his eyebrows with two fingers. Perhaps he needed to pray to Shiva to watch over
him
as well.

“Hey, Vikram. What’s up? May we join?”

A chair creaking made him look up and match the voice with a face. He greeted Michael Gill and Harsh Mathur with a nod. They were both cleaned up after a day of filming—Michael, model perfect; Harsh pale-eyed and godlike. Together, the three of them looked like
Men’s Health
poster boys.

“Sure. Have a seat. I am just mentally preparing for tomorrow,” he admitted.

They exchanged a look that he could only interpret as “mysterious”, though its source was more than obvious. As they chatted about his trip, his most recent projects, and he asked after the relevant set side gossip, he knew what they were really trying to figure out: him and Sam.
What is the deal? Are you going to upset the apple cart? Are you going to fuck up this shoot?
Of course, they were too polite to ask, and he was of no mind to answer. Instead, he chatted about his parents and how much they liked Miami, since it had a sizable Indian community
and
familiar weather.

Eventually, Harsh drifted away. Then Michael, who shook his hand and said “best of luck!” before slipping out to the garden. When Viki turned back to his dinner, it was to realize he had left it too long. The grilled chicken tasted like sawdust, and the flash-fried
karela
was cold, rendering its bitterness unpalatable. Still, he forced a few more bites, knowing he needed the sustenance for the morning. He had two hand-to-hand combat sequences up first thing. Joshi and the fight master were hoping to have them in the can before the rain showers began again.

They would be his first scenes with Sam. Reba in wardrobe let slip that the cameramen had already placed wagers on how many takes they would go before arguing. It could be worse, Viki thought. They
could
be placing bets on how many takes they would go before landing in bed.

Chandu and Shankar face each other, blade drawn against rifle, Mother India against Mother England. Their past, playing as children at the feet of another mother who gave them both shelter, is yet another entity in the standoff, begging them not to spill blood.

“Chandu, you never should have joined Varun’s side,” Shankar spits, his eyes narrowed to slits.

“You never should have left it,” Chandu says simply.

It took four go-rounds until Joshi was satisfied with the sequence, with the camera angles and the close-ups of their brawl in the dirt. “Symbolic of how Chandu and Shankar fought as boys,” he’d pronounced, like there was so much depth to his every idea. By the end of it, half the cuts and scrapes they’d incurred were real, not just “symbolic”. Sam ached in places he hadn’t ached since going through detox in rehab.

Afterwards, they each headed to the rooms that had been turned into the
haveli
’s costume area, stripping off filthy
kurta
and
dhoti
and scandalizing the wardrobe girls. They shed Chandu and Shankar, too, leaving their characters on the floor in shapeless heaps. As Sam came back to himself, so did his awareness of Vikram. He tried not to look, tried not to remember, but Vikram was built like a warrior…all broad shoulders and muscles and whorls of dark hair clinging to his taut abs. His gaze was drawn there despite his best efforts, devouring every inch like a starving man. Surely Vikram felt the heat of his eyes; surely he tried to shut out the instant answering heat in his gut as he pulled a T-shirt over his head.

Being attracted to each other had never been their problem. It was easy. Effortless. As natural as breathing. As dangerous as choking.

But Vikram showed none of that. No, he simply said, “Good job today,” in clipped, professional tones, like they’d never worked together before and Sam was some extra on the set. Vikram had always been the very model of tact, of restraint.

“‘Good job’? That is all you have to say to me after three years?” Sam didn’t know whether he was annoyed or amused.

Viki’s response was a combination of both. His fists were tight, his mouth set even tighter. “What do you want? A parade and a banner proclaiming, ‘Hello’ and ‘How do you do’? Our first scene is finished. We’re alive. We didn’t break anything. What more is there?”

Sam deserved that. Hell, he’d set the rules,
na
? No talking, no e-mails, no Diwali cards or sweets at Christmas. When they’d split up, they’d snapped every tie—even the ones that required casual niceties. For three years, Vikram had walked out of every room Sam walked into. Now Sam was making small talk like they were in some auntie’s parlor. It’s a recovery thing, he could say. Only it wasn’t. He hadn’t twelve-stepped his way out of the pit, and this wasn’t about making amends to someone he’d wronged.
Nahin
, this was simple
need
. Because he hadn’t kicked one last bloody habit.

“I was trying to be a grown-up for once. Civil. Isn’t that what you always used to ask me? ‘Be an adult’?” He jerked on his shirt, haphazardly doing up the buttons and missing a few along the way. “Fine.
Tik hai.
Unless the cameras are rolling, I won’t trouble you. Okay?”

The look Viki gave him then was painfully familiar: weariness tempered with condescension. His words…they were familiar, too. “You will always trouble me, Sam.”

Chapter Fourteen

Breathe in
,
breathe out.
Breathe in, breathe out.
Vikram was lying flat, in
savasana
, soaking up the sun that warmed the small private yoga salon…and suddenly there were two pairs of eyes peering down at him. Michael and Harsh arriving to wherever he was in the hotel was beginning to become a pattern. He took his time sitting up, tempering his breathing and trying to keep the calm he’d fought for—the calm he
needed
to hold on to. “
Yaaron
, what’s up?”

“Nothing, man. We’re just catching a break from Avi and Trishna.” Michael was the first to drop beside him on the mat, sprawling out like they used to when they were just starting out, doing B-movies that required mostly shirtlessness and some flying fists and high kicks—basic
mar
-
peet
. Viki frowned at the thought. Come to think of it, not much had changed. He
still
engaged in ninety-percent shirtless fighting scenes.

Harsh chose to slide down the wall, tipping his head back against the cool stone. The sun streamed in and framed him perfectly, almost as though he’d planned it. “Avinash and Trishna are wonderful—they’ve become our fast friends—but they are very…emotional.”

His green eyes were full of quiet amusement, and there was no mistaking the way he paused on Trishna’s name. Viki remembered how that used to feel: saying someone’s name and revealing your soul.

You might want to take care
, he needed to warn Harsh…but somehow couldn’t. They were in the middle of nowhere, for God’s sake. If Harsh Mathur wanted to talk about another man’s wife like she was a heaping bowl of pistachio
kulfi
, so be it. No one from
Masala
or
Stardust
or
Cineblitz
was here to take mark of it.

“You know who else is emotional?” Michael picked up the thread as though they’d rehearsed it. Viki wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that they had. “
Sam
is emotional. The crew’s still talking about the scene he made with Joshi.”

“Is that
all
they’re talking about?” He looked from one to the other. They both wore angelic expressions that made him feel like a
dacoit
about to rob a train to Benares.

“
Nahin.
Rahul Anand and Priya Roy have some kind of history. Nicky Kohli wants some Justin Babbar or Beebler kid from
Amrika
to sing for his next record. Also, Laltu the tea boy thinks that Mili in makeup is sweet on Mohan the driver.” Harsh rattled these bits of news off without even skipping a beat. At Viki’s gobsmacked look and Michael’s burst of laughter, he only shrugged. “What? People talk freely around me. They think Mathur the Monk won’t tell anyone,
na
?”

Vikram made a mental note never to presume the same. “So, Sam…they are worried he will cause more scenes?” He hoped his voice was casual, not betraying that he was afraid of that very thing himself. That he was afraid of one thousand other things, too…nine hundred and ninety-nine of them involving him and Sam falling into bed once more.

Michael’s eyes were keen, knowing. After all, like recognized like,
na
? Before Sam—a time that was grainy, like a black and white film—he and Michael had been together a few times. Nothing memorable, nothing serious. Just some messing around after some workout sessions at the same gym. It had been simple. No mixed-up emotions, no promises. Just two guys itching their scratches. Now, such a concept was foreign to Viki. There was no simplicity after Sam Khanna. Still, Viki’s instinct was to defend, to reassure. “Sam’s sober now. He is changed. We will not remake our old movie.”

Harsh was the one who convulsed with mirth then. He shook his head, perfect hair bouncing like he was doing an advert for hair oil. “
Arre
,
chhoro
, Viki. The moment you said that, you doomed yourself. You two are on the path to ruin.”