While Yadagiri envisaged honeymoon for the just married in Ooty, Chandra was averse to it. Instead he wanted to stay put at home.
"Why, what's the idea?" Nithya asked Chandra when he made his intent clear.
"Don't I know you need time for that?"
"I like your sensitivity," she said thoughtfully. "But I feel we should give our honeymoon a fair chance."
"You're more than fair," said Chandra in admiration
Since Yadagiri had made all arrangements beforehand, they were on course of their 'fair chance'. As they poured out their hearts and bared their souls in the privacy of the first class railway coupe, their peculiar acquaintance acquired the form of a unique friendship. Gratified by their emotional closeness, they vowed to be open to each other forever.
When they reached their destination, they checked into an old-world motel. After breakfast, they went out to explore Ooty's scenic beauty in the midst of that spring. The ambience of the hill-resort and the climate of the season came to enthrall their hearts to enthuse their minds. And that enabled them to shed the overburden of their inhibited relationship.
"Weren't you expecting Rashid to turn up at our wedding?" she asked him, recalling how overjoyed she had been at the presence of her friends' battalion.
"I thought he would," he said, a little disappointed. "Maybe, it's a short notice for him. Or he should've been preoccupied."
"If you're partners still," she said, "wouldn't he have come?"
"Probably he would've," he tried to rationalize life, "but then, as life is circumstantial in its spread, relationships are situational in their scope. So we should learn to enjoy the fortunes of life and cherish the value of relationships in the context of their times. After all, Rashid made a vital difference to my psyche and that won't change, whatever be the change in the relationship. And that's what matters to my life, and that's what stands."
"What about your contribution to his life?" she asked. "Didn't that make all the difference to him? If I'm not cynical, I wonder whether he wanted to let sleeping dogs lie. Why, he might have felt that in case he showed up, you might as well develop second thoughts about your share in the growing business. But all said and done, had he come, it would've made a great difference to your memory. Wouldn't it have?"
"Maybe," he said, "but in the end, it's one's attitude that really matters to one's life."
"How come you have acquired such depth?"
"Well, the sense of rejection too has its own silver lining," he said thoughtfully. "When one gets rejected, either he gets defeatist or becomes enlightened."
"And so does dejection," she said nostalgically, "as happened in my case."
"Glad you didn't let yourself get bogged down," he said endearingly. "Otherwise, to my misfortune you would've ended up being a misogamist."
"Maybe true," she said winking at him. "What about the dame who gave such a fillip to your psyche?"
"You mean that Kamathipura girl?"
"Yes."
"If not for her," he said reminiscently, "I wouldn't have developed the confidence to propose to you. I shall cherish her forever."
"What's her name?"
"I didn't enquire."
"Why so?"
"Rashid told me all of them go by pseudonyms," he said, "and I didn't want to hear a lie from her."
"What a beautiful way to think!" she said in all admiration. "I feel I'm falling in love with you sooner than I thought it would be possible."
"What welcome news for me!" he said heartily.
"How strange life could be?" she said turning philosophical in turn. "Didn't she lift your spirits for my joy?"
"Don't go by hearsay," he smiled.
"Your testing time will come anyway," she was coy.
"Don't make me nervous," he said catching her hand in mock fear.
"I won't make it any easy either."
"It's appetizing, isn't it?"
"I think," she gesticulated, "it's time for dinner."
"Let's go then."
After a sumptuous meal, they strolled in the lawns of that sprawling compound.
"Why don't you give up smoking?" she said.
"Why not you begin?" he said in all seriousness. "It's Oscar Wilde I think who said that smoking is a perfect example of a perfect pleasure."
"What's next?" she said sounding naughty. "Drinking, I suppose!"
"Of course," he said, "these small pleasures of life add value to it."
"That's apart from the bonus of our love, isn't it?"
"That's the spirit," he said offering her a Berkeley.
"Not now," she said sniffing up the fag, "I'll try it in the room."
When they returned to their room after dinner, he helped her light a Berkeley.
"How do you like it?" he asked her as she took her first puff.
"I shall remember it as your first gift," she said and added as she took the second puff, "and take the drink as the third one."
"Looks like," he said feigning surprise, "you can't even count up to ten!"
"Oh, don't act innocent," she said winking at him.
"What about another?" he offered her as she stubbed the one in hand.
"What if I get addicted?" she said and took it nevertheless.
"Never mind," he said flicking the lighter again for them, "but do mind your rosy lips."
"Are you not exposing me to the vices of life?" she said trying to make rings in the air as Chandra would.
"Isn't it said," he said chasing the rings of smoke she made with his own, "that vices are the price we pay for our virtues."
"So small pleasures and little vices," she said happily, "combine to make life happy."
"The dos and don'ts only deny women," he said enigmatically. "And together we shall explore the thrills of life."
"I'm really lucky to be your wife."
"Be a nice girl and sleep now," he said reaching for his blanket. "You look so tired."
"Is that your advice for a woman on honeymoon?" she said coyly.
"Won't you need some more time?" he said tentatively.
"I've thought about it much," she said, in a measured tone. "True, it would've taken me long to trust a man again, leave alone loving one. But thanks to you, I'm saved of that doom, why, now I've come to feel the warmth of life like never before. I've even begun to love you, for your worth as a man. I think it's silly not to sink into your arms and waste our time. I want to give myself to you, now and here, heart, and soul.
But still... .
I know you would like to wait till I'm truly willing," she said looking into him. "You don't know how every passing moment is adding value to your persona in my perception. Also, one won't learn swimming by watching from the shores."
"Oh, how happy I am," he said kissing her hand.
"You may also know that I'm amorous and young," she said winking at him. "Why, you seem to hold a great promise at that, isn't it?"
Finding him tentative still, she leaned on him and crooned into his ears, "Don't you see my craving for the virtuosity of your virility?"
At that, in undying gratitude, Chandra overwhelmed Nithya with his unrelenting passion while she found herself yielding to him body and soul.
"Oh, what a fulfillment!" he exclaimed, savoring her ardor in the climax.
"What a syringe of passion it is!" she said raving in ecstasy.
"What a lovely well of love!" he cried joyously.
"Give me more," she began to rant in her orgasm, "Oh God, what a man I've got!"
"Take all I have," he said in ejaculation.
"Won't your liquor of love," she said clinging to him like a lizard, "make me an addict to it?!"
"What a pleasure it could be," he said lying in exhaustion, 'being a lifer in your cell of amour."
"Oh, you made me love you with all my heart," she said, feeling her own body, as they lay naked in bed. "It feels like I've begun life only now."
"Oh, what an exciting figure wrapped up in a silken skin," he said, fondling her. "Oh, how that makes our lovemaking so charming!"
"I'll try to keep it that way," she said fondling herself.
"I'll starve you if need be," he laughed.
"I don't mind that," she said coyly, "as long as you keep injecting me with your liquid of love."
"Won't you inspire if you maintain?"
"Okay, Doctor Love," she said, and pleased with the nickname she gave him, she called him thus all night.
Waking up the next day, Nithya found Chandra still asleep. Fondly looking at him, she tried to figure out the role sex played in her love life. She reckoned at last that with Vasu it had been the physical attraction that had accentuated her sexual urge and her sense of fulfillment too had owed more to that than the satiation in their union. But, the beauty of orgasmic thrill she felt in Chandra's lovemaking made him seem physically attractive in her mindset and her feeling of fulfillment enabled her to love him all the more.
When Nithya wanted him to prolong their enthralling honeymoon, an overwhelmed Chandra took her to Kodaikanal to cement their love in their ardency in an extended outing.
It seems, while for man, the physicality of woman fuels his sexual love for her, it was the sexual fulfillment from man that feeds woman's love for him.