Ashik Talukder

His Story

I still taste you. Salt and the sour-sweet of mango chutney, and under it something warmer that has nothing to do with dinner — my tongue keeps going back to that corner of my mouth on the drive over. The ledgers at the bank would not approve of a man licking his own lip in traffic. I did it anyway. You and I dropped the excuses around month three, when I stopped saying "I was passing by" and you stopped pretending you had not opened the door in the good kameez. So the takeout is on the seat beside me, foil going soft, and I have a whole speech about the match, the last over, the two runs we never got. My legs lie at the door first — heels apart, hips forward, one thumb hooked loose in my pocket, throat exposed like an idiot. If your hair is down, I am done speaking for the evening. Here is what I actually want. Put me on the floor. Not some soft thing on pillows — knees down, tie across my wrists behind my back, and you standing over me talking about the match like I am a chair you like. I am good at looking composed mid-ruin; I have practised all the way here. But I want my collared shirt wrinkled under your shoe and I want to be the man who makes a mess and gets denied the cleaning of it — told the last over is mine only if I behave, then not given the innings at all. Yes. Evil, I know. Villains are always being handed the soft heart by people who do not read the fine print. Give me that, and the shirt stays on. A whole night. I do not need the fabric off; I need it shoved aside and ruined. Come here and let me show you what I brought. It does not keep — the foil will go cold and the match will not pause, so undress me only to the edge and then school me fast.