Spice and Smoke (6 page)

She did, too. Clear as daylight. She’d been wearing some white, frothy
lehenga
,
edged in silver…and he’d told her she looked like an
Amrikan
wedding cake.

“And you said to me, ‘But I’m
desi
beneath, Avinash Kumar. I’m not wearing any panties.’” He laughed; the sound warm and familiar against her throat, her jaw, the shell of her ear. “An auspicious beginning to a beautiful relationship,
na
?”

A lewd beginning to a disaster was what it had been. But, oh, for a time it had been glorious. The diva-in-training and her bad boy…somehow they had taken Mumbai by storm, breaking hearts while it appeared they, themselves, had none.

Trishna let herself lean into him for a minute. Perhaps two. Then five. Then she closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to look at the illusion in the looking glass…the love story they’d never been meant to be.

“Don’t be kind, Avi. Go back to being a drunk
kaminey
,” she pleaded quietly. “Make eyes at Michael. Hurl insults at me and stay out all night. Pretend you don’t give a damn about anything but what you need.”

“Why?” His voice was bewildered. As young and naïve as hers. “Why would you ask that of me instead of asking for more?”

This misty reminiscence couldn’t last. It
wouldn’t
last. She knew better.

“Because that man is the husband I know how to let go of.”

His breath left his lungs in a harsh gasp, and he seemed to grow hard as marble. Her only answer was the swift absence of his body, and the bitter remnants of smoke.

The fight master had worked with them on the hit. A simple back fist. They’d blocked it so it would just glance Michael’s cheek. Shot from the correct angle, it would seem that impulsive Varun had thrown down the gauntlet, igniting the film’s central conflict as he dared strike an Englishman. But what should have been an easy stunt sent Michael staggering backwards. The sound was like a shot, echoing far louder than the clapboard signaling an automatic “Cut!”

His jaw stung. His pride, too. Avinash was already stalking from the set when the cacophony began. Michael shook away the makeup girl who was instantly ready to powder away the emerging knuckle marks.

“
Nahin
, Mili. Stop.” He caught Joshi’s eye. “I’ve got this,” he assured, pitching his voice low enough to carry in a way that meant business, while trying to ignore how his head was still rattling.

He found Avi on the small side veranda.
The
veranda. A return to the setting of the original indecent proposal. Somehow, Avi had already found and uncorked a bottle of liquor.

“What the Hell was that about?” Michael demanded.

All he received in response was a noisy swallow and a tight shrug. “I warned you,
na
? I need just one take to get things done.”

He shook his head, rueful despite the urge to give Avinash a punch. “I’m fairly sure that’s not what they meant by ‘getting the shot’.”

Avi slouched against a column, scowling like an ill-tempered tomcat. “Did a committee elect you to look after me? No thank you, sir. I am fine.”

“
Obviously.
” Michael rubbed at his jaw, wincing at the tenderness, and ran his tongue across his teeth—relieved to find nothing had been knocked loose. “It’s a wonder you’ve survived this long in the industry being so ‘fine’. D’you knock about every guy who refuses to shag you, or am I just special?”

“You didn’t have to refuse.”

“Trishna was at the same bloody party. You shouldn’t have
asked
.”

“You think this is so easy? That I can just leave my wife? Do you think this is
Amrika
? What do you want from me?” He shook his head, as if laughing along to a joke only he knew. “Even there…even there it wasn’t simple. It wasn’t
allowed
.”

“By who, Avi? You? When are you going to let yourself live your own life?” Michael had worked with some of the most beautiful men in the world. Hell,
he
was one of the most beautiful men in the world. Yet, there was something about Avinash ugly with rage and booze that was abso-bloody-lutely stunning.

“You think you know me?
Tum kuch nahin jaantha.
You know
nothing
.”

“Then enlighten me, Avinash. Tell me who you are.”

Avi’s eyes were red-rimmed…from drink, from smoke, probably from lack of sleep. Another few weeks of this, and no amount of makeup was going to make him look like a film star. “I know who I am. I’m not enough for you.”

Michael’s heart lurched. He was a grounded man, a proud man, but not one made of stone. “You’re wrong,
yaar
.
You
set the rules long before I came into this pornographic little picture. It’s me who isn’t enough for
you
. You need to suss that out without involving the entire bloody crew.”

“What about you, Michael? Don’t you have something to ‘suss out’?” Avinash practically snarled. “Or are you just so
perfect
that nothing runs through your veins except milk and honey?”

“Better milk and honey than piss and whiskey.” He wasn’t perfect. Not by a long shot. But he wasn’t
angry
. He wasn’t
bitter
. “Who hurt you so badly, Avinash, that you’re resigned to a half-life?”

Avi came away from the column, crowding into his space. Big and masculine and such a
mardh
. Such a
man
. “I don’t have a half-life. I have a full life. Everything I have is what I want. Except you…you are standing just out of my reach,
na
?”

It was just enough truth to make Michael’s nerves dance. To send his blood south and stirring. He inhaled, but the breath wasn’t cleansing or calming. It was full of heavy, humid air and the taste of Avinash’s mouth. It would be so easy to fuck him. To say “yes” and end this bullshit dance of tension and violence and lies. He wanted to. He wanted Avi to cover him, hold him, wring every last drop of come from his body and render him insensate. But he wanted
more
than that, too.

Michael wanted honesty. He wanted integrity. He wanted commitment. Passionate confessions and stupid musical numbers in a field of yellow flowers. Everything that they sold to eager young men and women crowding the cinema halls. He didn’t want to believe that was completely an illusion…that they were marketing something that couldn’t be attained.

God, he was beginning to sound like Harsh.

“Don’t you believe in love, Avinash?
Sachai pyar?
Real
love?”

The bottle in Avi’s hand nearly slipped. But his fingers caught hold of the neck before it could fall. Michael was drawn to the way his thumb and index finger hugged the lip…knowing they would cradle his cock the same way.
Fuck.
Goddammit.
This time, when he breathed in, he counted to ten, and the air felt pure.

The same could not be said for Avi’s gaze. It was as black as a crow’s wing. “I stopped believing in poetic nonsense when I was twenty, Michael. When I learned that love can be bought and sold, the price haggled over like fish at market. There’s no such thing as ‘
sachai pyar
’. There’s just deep trust. Trishna and I have that. You and I could have it also.”

No. No, they couldn’t. Michael wanted to take his face between his palms, to kiss him until there was nothing left but heat and sweetness. He wanted to bathe the redness from his eyes and slowly, softly, scrape the beard from his cheeks. He wanted to tell him, “Rest with me” and “Be with me” and “Fight with me” and “Fuck me”. But he couldn’t promise to trust a man who didn’t trust
himself
.

So he did what he’d done just weeks ago on this very veranda.

He turned and walked away.

Chapter Eight

Harsh could mark his work days with Michael by how many times they ended up in an Ambassador car. At last count, it was four. The first after the
muhurat
; the two after that being the far more mundane matter of being ferried from the location back to their hotel. But this, the fourth time, did not feel the same. It wasn’t just another drive after a long day’s shooting that would end in the hotel bar or the gym.

Michael’s pale skin was sickly, fevered. There were circles under his eyes, and the arm he was resting against the window was tensed, as though at any moment he could turn and give Harsh a punch. He looked like someone had backed over him with a lorry. Not once, but thrice.
“We’re on a dangerous road, yaar. A very, very dangerous road,”
he’d warned Harsh…sounding so wise and arrogant at the same time…and yet it was clear he’d forgotten to step off the path himself. The traffic had mowed him down.
Avinash Kumar
had run him down.

“
Sab tik tho hai?
Are you okay,
yaar
?” It was a stupid question. A hollow one. But it was better than gazing down at the screen of his mobile and acting as if nothing was askew.

The only answer he was given was a laugh. Tired and beaten. Michael rubbed at his forehead with his fingertips, hunching his shoulders. It was not a model’s confident pose, daring a camera to find any imperfection.

“You look like shit, man.”

Michael glanced at the driver—Madan was a local; his English was restricted to “yes, sir” and “good morning”—before he made a reply. “You think I look bad? You should see the other bloke.”

“I have.” Very soon, Avi and Michael would be matching pictures of misery. “This is eating at you like acid. It is killing you. Is it really so important to be noble? To stay away?
Kya faidha?
What is the point,
yaar
? Why not just go to him and save the pain?”

Michael’s laughter turned into a choked noise of anger. “It would certainly make things easier for you, wouldn’t it? It took you, what, ten years to say something to Trishna? Also, if I take Avi, then you have really had to do nothing. You just wait and catch her after the fall. The Mighty Harsh Mathur…you come out of all of this with your sainted reputation intact.”

That was absurd. “Is that what you think? That I am waiting for
you
to take all the risks so I can be her hero?” What nonsense.

“Oh, of course not.” The acid that was eating him now flowed from Michael’s tongue. “Trishna has loved you for ten years. I feel like I haven’t even known Avinash for ten minutes. But you are not taking the easy path, no. You would never,
ever
be that dishonest, would you? You would
never
look to everyone else to make your love story come true.
Nahin.
You’re content to suffer in silence until she is free to come to you on her own. You are such a good man, Harsh.
Kitna mahaan admi.
Such a king of self-denial.”

If he were anyone else, Harsh would’ve hit him for such a horrible accusation. But he knew all too well where Michael was sitting. Right beside him on a road to Hell that they’d paved with their good intentions. “I think we are both ruling that kingdom.
Saath saath.
Together.”

“So, what’s stopping you from going to Trishna?” Michael turned his own question back to him. “Is it really so important to be noble? Why not save yourself the pain?”

Because he’d been stupidly noble for entirely too long already? Because it was a habit? Mathur the Monk, Mathur the Mighty…Mathur the Goddamn Martyr? He laughed, smothering the sound against his palm and rocking forward in his seat. Michael was right. At least in part. He had not intended to bide his time while Michael and Avinash played out their version of
Dostana
Part Two. But he
had
been a coward. For too long. It was time for Harsh to fight for the role he wanted more than any other: that of Trishna’s real-life leading man.

The first few weeks of the shoot had flown by as expected. Lots of dialogue-heavy scenes between the men. One mournful love song picturization between her and Harsh—too mournful for comfort. A few more arguments between Avi and Michael. The resentment resulting from Avi’s bruised ego had made their scenes electric. Watching from the side, she had been amazed, believing fully that Varun, the bold Bihari revolutionary, and Mr. Austin, the East India Company man who longed to go back to England, hated each other. Varun’s village Hindi was thickly accented, and Austin looked so very, very British in his starched suits. When the cameras stopped rolling, it was another story. Then…then they were simply her husband and Michael Gill again, and she knew it wasn’t hate, but unfulfilled desire, that coursed between them.

It was a feeling she knew all too well. Something she could not shake. Every time her character gazed at Harsh’s it was like being run through with a saber. Harsh looked unbearably good in his white
kurta
and
dhoti
; she didn’t have to fake Alok and Nishta’s forbidden longing.

What she
did
have to fake was Nishta’s innocence. Because her own emotions were so tangled and ugly. Because she couldn’t look at Harsh and not
want
, not be consumed with need that left her trembling and cursing the bed that her husband left empty. Every moment on camera was torture, and every second moment was more.

Then Joshi or his AD would yell “Cut!” and “Print!” and they would wrap for the day…each going back to their separate rooms instead of bullshitting with the crew at a local tea stall or going to the hotel lounge with Joshi and whatever producers were visiting. Only, instead of taking dinner with her and going to bed, Avi vanished for hours at a time, returning smelling of smoke and liquor and looking like he’d been trampled by a parade of donkey carts.