Monica and Me

A prelude to my decision to break up with Monica was the vanishing acts that both of us enacted in equal measure. When Monica disappeared from the town for two days without telling me where she was going, I had to do something similar. I left for Goa for a week without informing her. There I had a good time with a female acquaintance. I thought that when I was back in town, Monica would want to know where I had been. But she didn't seem to care about where I went and what I did.

I felt mildly miffed with her attitude of not missing me for a whole week. After all, I was supposed to be her steady boyfriend. She was supposed to care about me; just I was supposed to care about her. But did I really care for her? On my part, hadn't I failed to inquire from her where she had been, when she disappeared from the town for two days? Was there a new man in her life? Who cares! It was definitely time for us to move on. How could I remain her boyfriend when neither of us seemed to care for each other?

I called Monica up and asked her to have dinner with me at the Chinese restaurant where we used to hangout quite regularly. She was waiting for me outside the restaurant when I arrived. She gave me her winning smile and a warm and wet kiss. Her attitude said that nothing had changed between us. I took her hand and we went inside the restaurant. Inside, I maneuvered her to a corner table, which I thought would offer a degree of privacy for the nature of conversation that I wished to have with her today.

We decided to have Vodka along with crabs done in Chinese style. I opted for Vodka because I thought that if she had some alcohol in her system she would be in a better position to handle the news of our breakup. Soon we were sipping from our drinks and digging into the succulent crabs. She was proving to be remarkably voluble today. But I hardly heard what she was saying; I was too busy looking for an opening that would allow me to tell her that it was over between us.

Suddenly a light music started playing in the background. It was Sheryl Crow singing her most popular song, "Its just a little crush..."

"Ah my favorite song," Monica exclaimed.

There it was - the opening that I was looking for to take control of the conversation. "That is what brought us together in the first place," I said quickly.

"What is what that brought us together?" she raised her eyebrows.

"A little crush that I felt for you."

She still didn't get my point. She laughed. "I can see that in your eyes. That you have a crush for me."

"What I mean is that there never was anything serious between us. It was just a little crush that brought us together."

Finally I had her attention. The smile vanished from her face and she gave me a quizzical look. I prayed silently that she would take my decision to breakup with her in the right spirit. Last thing I needed was a noisy altercation in a crowded restaurant.

"A crush is like a passing fancy," I said, "it seldom lasts."

"You are talking in circles," said Monica. "If this has something to do with the two days when I was out of the town? Well, I was in Bombay to meet some relatives. It is not as if I am having another affair?"

"You don't have to tell me anything about your trip to Bombay. It is not about anything you have done. It is about me; I am ready to move on. The same I think is true about you. You are ready to move on too. We don't have to bind ourselves to a relationship that is destined to reach nowhere."

"What makes you so sure that I am ready to move on?" she snapped. "You can only talk about yourself."

"I was out of town for a week. But you never asked me where I was."

"I thought that you were out on some office work."

"I was with another woman in Goa."

There was a pregnant silence between us that she broke by saying, "Somehow I am not surprised to hear that."

"Why not?"

"I had a feeling that our relationship was not meant to last," she finished the vodka left in her glass in few sips and signaled the waiter for another round of drinks. There was a pain and confusion on her face. Both of us had downed few glasses of drinks by the time we left the restaurant. We walked up to the traffic median and sat down in the park. There we reminisced the times that we had spent together. We tried to sound cool about our breakup, but deep inside it was getting painful for both of us. Finally she said that she wanted to spend one last night with me. I drove her to my apartment. She wanted to see the pictures that we had clicked together. I switched on my laptop and we viewed the pictures that were clicked during the heydays of our romance.

But the vodka that we had had at the restaurant was working on us and soon we were staring at each other with glazed, passion-dulled eyes. She gave me a kiss and that was the only cue that was needed to bring our bodies together in an orgiastic union. As we stripped, a tableau of unmitigated lust unfolded between us, and passion took over.

She hastily put on her clothes once we had separated. I called a cab for her. She gave me a last kiss before walking out of my life forever. I looked out of the window, there were two cabs parked outside my building. She went to the wrong cab first, and after having a word with that cab's driver she walked up to the second cab and left in it.