A real marriage is not a thing of externality - not of family, age nor background - yet a bond between two souls that has a reality only the two of them can see. For we cannot truly become aware of this sixth sense until our soul-partner arrives.

Anirudh and Bondita were soul-partners to each other. No matter how much they argue, or disagree, they knew they can never outgrow each other, for the friendship and respect in their relationship weighed way more than the conjugal bond they shared.
Wives would fight with their husbands, over a dirty towel, or a strain that a cup of tea would leave on a glass-top table, and husbands in turn would calm their wives by claiming her with love... That's how the world works, that's how love grows, and that's how Anirudh and Bondita were meant to re-establish their undying love for each other.
No matter how much they fight indoors, no matter how much the arguments are weighed down by the counter arguments, but the moment an external threat poses even the slightest of intimidation, all the arguments and counter arguments, and everything else falls apart, and the only thing that remains was the overpowering urge to protect the one whom they live for.

The incident at the hospital had brought Bondita and Anirudh closer, their hearts being able to beat again, in sync, looking past the confrontation that they had in the morning.

"Exams in ten days, Bondita?" Anirudh had asked, and Bondita nodded in agreement.

"Prepared?"

She nodded again, and smiled.
"You were a little too much today. The man was almost crying."

It was a little before five in the evening when Bondita and Anirudh had returned back from the hospital. Rudhi had already fallen asleep and after a small luncheon, the couple sat in their lavish drawing room, he with the evening newspaper, and she with her textbooks.

"I should have made him cry tears of blood!" Anirudh had hissed softly. "How dare he talks to you indecently."

"I'm wondering who made him a RayBahadur! Or, was he lying?" She widened her eyes.

"No Bondita, I think he wasn't. If he knows Satya as Sarthaki, then I think he has to be related to the Mukherjee's." His eyebrows had a frown too.
"I'm wondering why would Satya ask the man to see him, knowing that he won't be available at the hospital, and that his ruse might be blown?"

Bondita was listening quietly, her face too, was serious in thoughts.

"We'll have to be careful till Monday, Barrister Babu. The evidence needs to be submitted to the court, and we can't afford to miss this time."

Anirudh sighed.
"About that... Bondita, I wanted to let you..."

Bondita was somewhere lost, deep in her thoughts, and she failed to acknowledge his words, and spoke up instead.

"The man was no doubt a vile one, he made me repulsive." She paused, thinking, "The world is probably full of such people, Barrister Babu, wherever you go...", she closed her eyes, her mind drifted back to the menacing encounter that she had experienced with Rishit Sinha.

"Are you thinking about Dehradun?"
He suddenly asked, startling her at once.

"How do you know?"

Anirudh didn't reply. Instead, he pulled down his casted leg and got up from the couch.
"Come here", his face had that same calmness that Bondita had seen the day he had married her, and pulled her in his chest to soothe her from the devastating trauma that had threatened to rip her off her childhood innocence.

"Barrister Babu... I..."
Bondita suddenly felt overwhelmed. This was the same man who had saved her life, the same man who had given her life a meaning, fighting against all the odds, and here she was trying to win an unequal argument with him!

She looked up at him, her eyes conveying more than her words could, her lips quivered. And before she could speak, they both heard their names being called.

"Bahu?? Anirudh?"
Trilochan had entered the hall, with Rudhi, cradled in his arms, smiling, and the couple broke their eye contact and stood beside each other immediately.

"Yes, KakaSasurji." Bondita replied softly.

"Bahu, I'm going to Calcutta Club, and I'm taking my Rudhi beta with me." He stuck out his tongue playfully at the baby, as she too, did the same to the old man.
Everyone laughed.

"She's indoors all the time, how I miss her being in Tulsipur!" Trilochan sighed, "I'm taking the driver, once Batuk comes home tell him I would like to speak to him, I might have spoken to someone about his marriage."

Anirudh coughed at his words.
"Umm... Kaka... Let's give him sometime. He probably..."

"No Anirudh, water is now rising overhead, he is hardly home." Trilochan picked up a small bag that Bondita had arranged for Rudhi in the meanwhile.
"A marriage will fix him."

Anirudh wasn't in a mood to argue, for he had already had his share of arguments in the morning. He nodded his head quietly and waved at the little baby.

"Bye bye ShonaMaa." Anirudh pouted his lips to show her a kiss and the baby imitated him promptly.

"She's getting very fast these days." Her mother pulled her hand and dabbed a little of her kohl behind her ear.
"There you go, little one... Dugga Dugga."

Trilochan had left with the baby, leaving Anirudh and Bondita behind, and the moment Bondita came back after latching the front door, Anirudh pulled her abruptly in his arms and pinned her against a wall.

"What are you doing?"
A startled Bondita muttered instinctively.

"Something which I should have done in the morning."
Anirudh's expressions were serious.

"What?"

"Bondita, you said something in the morning, about consent, and that kept me wondering whether it's time for me to teach you a little about the same."

Anirudh hadn't held her, instead his hands were on the wall, caging her within them, restricting her movements.

"What's that?"
Bondita murmured, a small knot had begun to form in her stomach, betraying her resolve, sending sparks of a forbidden excitement all over her body.

"So, what do you think consent is, Bondita?"
Anirudh's voice was a hush, but it's firmness was a little intimidating, even for her.

"Ap.. approval."
She murmured.

"Good. And how can you express an approval?"

"By... By saying it."

"Good. So what do you do if you don't have your consent to an action?"
His eyes were fixed on her fluttering eyelashes, as if scanning each and every facial expression on her beautiful canvas.

"I say 'No'." She muttered softly.

"Good, and what if you don't say 'No'? Then?"

Bondita didn't reply, instead she felt her own body doing wonders at this closeness of her charismatic husband.
Anirudh spoke again.

"In case if you are wondering, in law, silence is taken to be a consent." He hushed again, his lips were now near her right ear, as she trembled a little under his breath.
"So, either you clearly say 'No', or it's considered to be your consent, verbal or non- verbal, understood?"

Bondita gulped, and nodded her head.

"So, that night, in Dehradun, inside our study, I don't remember you saying 'No' in anyway," his lips were almost brushing her earlobe and Bondita couldn't help but grip the front of his shirt firmly.
"Did you? Say 'No'?"

Bondita didn't reply.

"I remember you to moan that night, my name, repeatedly." He nibbled at her earlobe and hushed again.
"Were you moaning against your consent, Bondita?"

Bondita closed her eyes, her heart fluttering violently, but at the same time a sudden embarrassment had engulfed her as well, the embarrassment of being wrong.
"But, but you didn't ask?" She murmured, and Anirudh's eyes furrowed instantly.

"I didn't ask, as verbal consent seemed irrelevant at that moment. Did you feel bad when I touched you?"

Bondita couldn't resist her acceptance anymore, her denial was weighing down. He was right, and she was still fighting!

"No, I didn't."
She murmured, and looked down.

"So, if I touch you now, will you feel bad?"
He asked her again, his body pressing against her gently.

"But, but you won't. We... We're not good yet."

"So will I have to wait for four more days for us to be good? Come on!" Anirudh chuckled and Bondita looked up at him at once, as the naughty smirk on his lips made her mad again.

"How mean of you... My periods have nothing to do with this!" She rolled her eyes.
"And, No, you don't have my consent, so let me go."
She wiggled against him, and his hands slowly left the wall and held her instead, first gently, and then in a tight embrace.

"I can never let you go, ever", his hands were caressing the small of her back, moving down to the softness of her buttocks, as he gave it a firm squeeze.
Bondita jumped in his arms.

"What are you..."
She couldn't complete, and Anirudh's mouth was sucking her earlobe, his tongue running down, forming trails of wet kisses on her neck.
Bondita closed her eyes and held her head back.
Anirudh's tongue was now on the hollow of her neck, moving south to the crevice of her heaving bosoms, and his hands continued their ministrations all over her soft body.

"How does this feel Bondita?" He growled the words, his teeth pulling down the hem of her blouse, forming a blotch of wetness on the cloth, the saree was hanging on her arm.
"Does this feel good?" He growled again, "Do I have your consent?"

Bondita didn't reply, infact she couldn't, her toes had already curled in the euphoric excitement that her body was experiencing. She arched her back, struggling to balance her weight, and hence shifted her body weight entirely on him in turn.
Anirudh had held her firmly, making her stand upright.
"Call me by my name if I have your consent!"
His words were followed by the grazing of his teeth on her soft breasts, his tongue flicking on the hardened nubs from over the thin material of the blouse.

Bondita moaned softly.
"Ani... Anirudhhh..."

Her lower lip was held in between her teeth, seductively, and taking a glance at her flushed face, Anirudh quickly let go of her body, entirely, as he stood infront of her and touched her chin instead, pulling her face up to meet his eyes.

"Whatever I did just now was wrong too." He smiled softly, and Bondita frowned in confusion and annoyance at this sudden interjection in between their make out session.

"What?"

Anirudh leaned forward and kissed her nose.
"First, stop doing that to your tiny little nose." He pinched her cheek lovingly.
"I said what I just did to you is wrong, entirely... It's called manipulating a consent." He kissed her nose again, and then on the frowned bridge in between her eyebrows.
"You said 'No', and then I manipulated your 'No' into an 'Yes'... This is wrong, and you should learn to stay firm."
Bondita was looking at him with clear displeasure in her eyes, and he smirked.
"This is what you did to me inside the tent, on the picnic... Do you understand the difference now?"

Bondita pouted her lips and pushed him away gently, her body still craving his intense caressing.
"Go, I won't talk to you."

She tried to escape and the next second, Anirudh had scooped her up from the floor, and she was in his arms, holding his neck for support.
An instant colour had appeared on her beautiful puffy cheeks, the colour of love.

"Your ribs?"
She murmured.

"Healed!" His eyes were intensified on hers, as he slowly walked towards the stairs, leading them both to their bedroom.

"Your leg?"

"Healing!" He whispered, sending a pool of warm desires all over her body.
He was climbing up the staircase slowly.

"And, fingers?"
She gulped.

"Kiss them tonight, as much as you can, and they'll heal too!"
He pushed the door open with his elbow and entered inside the room.

"How I missed being here, Shona!" He inhaled sharply and lowered her on the bed. Bondita rolled down, making space for him beside her.
"I too, missed, US!" She smiled.

When love runs soul deep, a kiss is no longer a kiss, but the juncture where heaven and earth meet.
Time flew like wind, and the kisses that Anirudh and Bondita shared, formed the waves of an ocean, relentless, non-tiring. The passionate grip of their bodies, intertwined into each other's, reflected the warmth of the love they shared. It wasn't hasty, rather it was slow, yet had the power to make heartbeat pound and butterflies run in stomach.

"Four more days, and you have no idea what I'll do to you." Anirudh groaned, freeing her briefly from the embrace of his lips.
Her lips were puffy, and she licked them seductively to erase the dryness.

"What will you do?" She murmured, her voice hoarse in an erotic sensuality.

Anirudh smirked.
"I want to give you a pleasant grab on the throat,
A fear of choke... A reality of such deep kisses I'll pour into you."
He whispered into her mouth, his lips brushing on hers, and his words breathed into the warmth of her tender kisses.
"To let you forget your existence,
To let you surrender into my realms...
Lusty, and fall into my arms...
Forget your breath, just WE bodies!"

Bondita moaned out, as he finished his sensuous verbal ministrations on her, his hands running feather-touches all over her breasts.
They still had the barriers of clothes, but the electric passion with which they lay was undeniable.

"Barrister babu," Bondita hushed, "I'm sorry." Her eyes were looking at him, straight, with humbleness.
"You've always taught me to reflect upon my actions, and I have." She paused. "And, my actions weren't justified."

Anirudh cupped her face at once.
"This is what makes me feel so proud of you Bondita, your outright honesty", he kissed her forehead, and then her nose.
"And, I'm sorry too, Shona. I shouldn't have started what I had no control over." He sighed and rested his head on the crook of her neck.
"I should have known..."

The calm peacefulness of the moment was suddenly interrupted, startling Bondita, and forcing Anirudh to stop in the middle of his sentence.

Tring...Tring...
Tring...Tring...

A frown was clear on his face.
"Who might be calling at this hour, on a Saturday?" He brushed a quick glance at the clock.

8:36 pm

Anirudh shifted to his side, and rolled over, lying on his back, and before he could get up, Bondita quickly got up and picked up the receiver.

"Hello?" She replied.

"Bahu? Where is he? Call him, right now!"

"KakaSasurji?" Bondita narrowed her eyes, sensing the agitated restlessness in his voice. "Is everything..."

"Get him..." His voice was a hushed roar, and Anirudh took the receiver from his wife's hand at once.

"Kaka...?"

Trilochan's rugged breath was audible clearly from over the telephone.

"Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow..."

A sharp sweep of acute terror made Anirudh's voice tremble, he felt a dryness in his throat, and beads of sweat had already started to form in his forehead.

"Rudhi?" He blurted out, restlessly.

"All's well." Trilochan's voice was a low whisper, and then soft chuckles, as if trying to hide his agitation from someone.

"How much time do we have?"

"Two Sandesh, small ones."

The phone line got disconnected at once, and before Bondita could ask him anything, Anirudh turned around and held her by the shoulders.

"Bondita... We need to run... Right now!!"
His clenched jaws had fed urgency in her.
"Shall I pack?" She breathed.

"No!"

.........................................................

I'm almost done writing the next one. Vote quickly and I'll post another one.
😘😘