FOR LOVERS
Bi-Revenge
‘Was that your girlfriend in the hoodie this morning? You know, it’s not allowed for girls to go towards the boys’ dormitories’, said the campus security guard, twirling his moustache.
Bob didn’t mind the banter as everyone at the university was fond of him and Tina.
‘Go hunt some quails with your service rifle in the hills’, Bob said, laughing. ‘Your retired arse has no business spying on punks like us’.
After reaching the girls’ dormitory, he requested the guard on the gate to call Tina, who announced Tina’s name on the mike and she appeared at the gate within ten minutes—as expected. Bob entered the garden next to the dormitory, with Tina trailing behind him.
‘So what’s our weekend plan’? Tina said as Bob stopped under a tree and turned around.
‘Let’s go watch the film that I mentioned last night. Dwight told me, it has lesbian scenes, a first for a mainstream film.’
‘I told you already, I don’t want to go’, Tina said, sitting on a bench.
Bob looked into Tina’s eyes. Amadeus candy petals.
‘I see white spots on your chin and upper lip. I don’t think you are here’, he said, looking at the rickety building. Girls aptly call it a pigeonhole.
‘I am standing in the middle of thousands of pigeons. The air rising with their fluttering wings soothes my Asthma’. Tina wiped the white spots, albeit with little success. ‘Chuck it. Why are you asking again and again’?
‘Because I see no reason for your denial. You once mentioned that you liked that artsy film—Fire. Then why not this one’?
‘I saw Fire long ago. I was not what I am now. Look, it’s hard for straight guys to imagine themselves in a gay position and not throw up. That’s the reason you couldn’t watch Brokeback Mountain. Boys don’t find other boys attractive, at least not in a sexual way’, Tina said in a single breath.
‘And, girls’? Bob adjusted his running shorts. ‘How do girls find other girls’?
‘Girls may not explore it, but there is a little bi side to every straight girl’.
‘I got your point’. She doesn’t wear this skirt often. I should have asked her before gifting it to her. ‘I feel women are bi in their mental state too.’
‘You are mad. You know that’? Tina laughed. ‘I have seen the trailer of the film and I can understand that you find it hot and want to see it with me’.
‘What is the problem then’?
‘Did you notice the girl with short hair in it’? Tina said, adjusting the curls of her full head.
Her hair now reached the shoulders as opposed to the Bob-cut, Bob had seen her sporting when hey started dating.
‘I saw the trailer with Dwight and he said that she resembles you’. Bob lighted a cigarette and offered it to Tina after taking the first toke. ‘She looks a little like you, more so in the hair department’.
‘Do you recall the other girl in the trailer’?
They took turns smoking the cigarette. Bob pondered for a while. He remembered that she was lanky and had long hair, and her gait resembled that of a bride walking down the aisle, clasping the hands of her father.
‘Oh yes’, Bob said. ‘I can picture her but what are you trying to arrive at’?
‘I mean, do you see someone in our college who resembles her’?
‘I know that I know her from somewhere. I can’t place my finger at it’.
‘She is in my class’.
‘Oh, you are talking about that Moor girl. The bride. Right? Yes, she resembles that other girl in the movie trailer’.
‘So, these two girls resemble us and we were roommates in our first year—’.
‘So’?
‘but—’
‘Why is there a but? Why is there always a but’? Bob said.
He released a cloud of smoke from his nostrils after taking the last toke from the cigarette. The fumes smelt as if clothes were burning in a distance. He threw the butt in front of Tina, which she crushed with her white tennis shoes.
‘—we were more than roommates’.
‘I get it. You were roommates and you were enjoying each other’s company more than other roommates do’.
Clouds formed and the summer heat gave way to a cool breeze coming from the hills behind the campus.
Whenever Tina complained of the heat, Bob said, ‘I will send some clouds your way when we get some private space’. Couple things and their inside jokes.
‘Oh, you do? Yes, we were close, and this movie reminds me of her’, said Tina.
‘So, you miss her’? Bob said fumbling for a cigarette in his pockets. He knew he had more.
‘Oh no, that’s not the case. We broke up fairly bad and the whole ‘varsity knows that we are not on talking terms anymore’.
‘What’s the deal then’?
‘I hate her. I hate that I let her do it to me’.
‘Will you hate me too if we break up on a bad note’?
‘I might’. She got up. ‘I am going inside to get something I forgot’.
‘Sure. I‘ll be here when you get back’.
Bob’s mind transported him to their first encounter. He had heard someone shout his name in the parking lot of the art centre near his college. Bob had gotten out of the theatre before the play ended. Waiting for others to come out, he had rolled himself a joint and had just lighted it.
He turned around to see Glen—waving at him—with a girl walking beside him. By the time they reached him, Bob had the girl scrutinized from tip to toe. But, when she stood in front of him tilting her head a little, Bob forgot the basic etiquette of blowing the smoke away from someone’s face. He released the thick smoke right in front of her face. As the smoke-veil rose, time slowed down, for him to revel in the features of her face for a second time, unlike the cursory view of the first time.
Her chin was small but opulent. Her lips were thin but succulent. And, her nose was small but elegant. Her blonde curls reached the jawline on the left. On the other side, behind the ear, they were made to rest.
Dampness in the weather withered away but when Bob reached her eyes, they widened and became fierce. The smoke cleared.
The light from the lamp post behind her illuminated the frizz on her head as she opened her mouth, ‘Are you nuts? Who does that’?
In a swift movement, she took the joint from Bob’s hand and seeing that it was not a cigarette returned it.
‘He is in my class’, Glen said.
‘Teach him a thing or two about respecting seniors’. Tina said and turned to go. But then she turned back. ‘What’s your name’?
‘Robert’.
‘Do they call you Bob’?
‘Everyone does that. You can too’.
Tina had sailed away, swaying her frock. Glen had departed too and that had ended their first meeting.
In the meantime, Tina had returned. She sat beside him and produced a plastic carry-bag and two vials from her hand-crafted jhola—Bob’s gift to her from the craft- fair last year. She poured some whitener in the translucent carry-bag from one of the vials. Then she poured a few drops of thinner from the other vial, her hands shaking. The air around them smelled like a newly painted house. After closing the lids of both and tucking them back from where she had gotten them, she started her daily ritual of going among the pigeons to soothe her Asthma.
As the carry-bag started to make noise with Tina’s inhaling and exhaling, Bob came out of his thoughts. He remembered some research, which said: Smelling the air that rises from the fluttering of pigeon’s wings aggravates asthma and may also bring in new infections.
He had remembered the research a lot of times before too. He had tried to cajole her into not going there. He had tried it himself too, to make her feel the way he felt when she did it. She needed it to forget. That’s what she always told him. Forget what? She never answered that.
When she had her fill, Tina put her head on Bob’s lap and asked him to run his fingers in her hair. Cranially, she was there. Cerebrally, she was among the pigeons. And then she went to sleep.
Bob’s mind wandered to their second meeting. He had casually messed here hair when he saw her sitting alone in the college cafeteria.
They got talking and Bob sensed that she was not as blithesome as everyone in the university said about her. She was laidback for sure but she was never in the moment, her eyes kept deviating, her speech became slurry in between talks and she would completely cut him off while he was talking. Bob didn’t know why she trusted him but she, in bits and pieces, told him a lot about herself. Her childhood crushes, her high school boyfriend, her ex in the university and then she started crying. Bob sat there while she sobbed offering tissues from the table whenever she looked up. When she regained her composure, he proposed going for a walk on the campus trail that led to the hills. She agreed.
They got a bottle of cheap wine and made it to the hill just when the rain started. They took shelter in a cavity on the far side of the hill and finished the bottle of wine. Bob got a taste of her lips on the wine bottle and longed for more. Tina sensed it and kissed him. He was a virgin but lied about it. They made love.
Bob had mistaken his sympathy for her for love and professed it to her. They had kissed and started the descent as lovers.
Bob let his hand slide over Tina’s shoulder and she woke up. She got up from the bench, straightened her back and sat again.
‘So, you don’t want to go to the movie because one girl in it resembles you and the other one looks like an ex- flame of yours’?
‘Yes exactly. Do you feel bad about it’?
‘Do you think I’d feel bad about not watching some silly film’?
‘I am asking about my affair with Moor’.
‘Have I felt bad hearing about any of your exes? Is she any different’?
‘No’, declared Tina.
‘Don’t worry about it then’.
‘I don’t want you to go too’, Tina said.
‘Sure, I won’t go’—Bob laughed—’lest I imagine you two there’.
‘You are a sweetheart but you are mad’. ‘I know. Are you still there’?
‘Yes, still in the middle of pigeons and they have started to talk to me now’, Tina said and farted and giggled.
The turpentine oil masked all her self-proclaimed modesty and Bob smelt a whiff rising from the hems of Tina’s blue skirt. He stood up, walked a few steps and barfed in the bushes.
‘I think I will leave now. When do you want me outside your pigeonhole tomorrow’? Bob said, spitting the last bitter strands of puke.
‘Are you all right’?
‘It’s nothing. Don’t worry. Tell me about tomorrow’.
‘Same time as every day, the time this pigeonhole opens to let the pigeons out’.
‘Okay. See you then. I love you’. Bob said and threw an air-kiss, Tina’s way and left.
He sauntered towards one of the many boys’ dormitories thinking about the revelation. She keeps surprising me with her past escapades.
Before his thoughts could pull him deeper, he reached the front of his dormitory. Instead of entering his own, he turned towards Dwight’s. Three loud knocks were what it took Dwight to open the door. His guitar was slung around his shoulders and he took it off before Bob could place himself on the chair sitting in the corner of the small room.
Dwight took a seat on the bed opposite Bob and said, ‘You look tired’.
‘I am fed up. All of my energy is spent on tackling her, day in and day out. She will not quit. I am a fool to expect this from her’.
‘Why don’t you tell her parents? You have met them a couple of times’.
‘Can’t do that, she trusts me on it and I can’t break her trust’.
‘You don’t love her, you sympathize with her. She doesn’t love you, she trusts you. She will die if she doesn’t quit’.
‘I am trying. I am sure, I will find a way to make her see the brighter side’.
‘What if she doesn’t want to see the brighter side’? Dwight stood up and started walking up and down the room. ‘She is taking a toll on your mental health. Do you realise? You don’t sleep’.
‘I have always needed less sleep. So, don’t worry about that. As for my mental health, I take revenge on her for dragging me into her life by going against what she expects of me. It keeps me sane. This defiance is my redemption of being so powerless in this relationship. I go with her whims so that she doesn’t sink deep into the rabbit-hole but without her knowledge, I do things that she would not approve of, to keep myself sane’.
‘Like what’? Dwight stopped in front of Bob.
‘Do you feel like going to that lesbian film’? Bob said, getting up to stand face to face with his friend.
‘Why not man’? Dwight said putting his right arm on Bob’s left shoulder and pressing it. ‘You know how much I love this particular genre’.
This made Bob guffaw. ‘Come on, we are going to the next available show. My treat! And, in the meantime let’s see what’s new with your guitar’.
‘Tell me one thing before that. Don’t you feel guilty that you are doing something that she asked you not to’?
‘I do but revenge is a double-edged sword. Apart from the victim, it hurts the wielder too’.
‘If you allow me to give two pennies worth, yours is bi- revenge’.
‘I don’t know. If you mean revenge on her and me for misconstruing sympathy for love and then actually falling in love, you can say it is bi-revenge’.
‘Hmm. Okay. Here comes the guitar’. Dwight slung the guitar over his shoulders without plugging it into the amplifier. ‘Keep in mind that I know that you only watch the strings’.
‘But, I love the twang too’.