Tulsi Vivah Read online

  While Arjuna put away his worshipping paraphernalia, Kris went to the fridge and poured two glasses of cold wine. Well, it was fizzy grape juice, but although he’d never admit it to Arjuna, he preferred the stuff to alcohol now. It tasted better and didn’t make him wake up feeling like he’d eaten a raw squirrel in his sleep.

  He carried the filled glasses into the bedroom and set them on the bedside table. He even remembered to use coasters so Arjuna wouldn’t start hyperventilating when he saw them. Then he went into the en suite and let a cool shower sluice off the sticky heat of the day and the last of his cares about Christmas trees and demanding customers. When he came out, Arjuna was in the bedroom, tidying his sock drawer even though Kris knew it would already be scarily tidy with the socks arranged by color.

  For Diwali, he’d bought Arjuna rainbow socks just to see how the system would cope. Last time he’d looked, they were right in the center with the yellows one side and the oranges on the other.

  Arjuna turned as the bathroom door closed, and sucked in a breath through his nose. Kris had dried himself in the bathroom and left the towel on the rack. Arjuna dropped the socks he was holding and left the drawer open, forgotten, as he gazed at Kris.

  “I still have that effect on you, huh?” Kris posed like a Greek statue, though without the stubby knob or coiffed pubes.

  Arjuna didn’t laugh. He crossed the room and cupped Kris’s face. “Always.”

  Kris wondered if Arjuna’s kisses would always melt his bones. What had he done to deserve this; finding his soulmate before he was thirty? Some people waited a lifetime. Some people would never feel this.

  He held Arjuna tight and only released him to rectify the issue of Arjuna still wearing clothes. Then he lay on the bed, holding Arjuna at arm’s length to take in his body. Just like he was the only one to watch Arjuna in his private prayers, Kris was the only one who knew he hid those muscles under his neurotically ironed suits. He didn’t look like the type who worked out, until he was naked.

  It was their secret. One of their secrets.

  Arjuna let him look, then climbed on top of him. He grasped Kris’s waist in strong hands and pulled until their hardening cocks were pressed together, then hungrily found Kris’s lips.

  Kris moved his hips, rubbing their erections together until Arjuna gave a guttural grunt and bit his collarbone.

  “Mm.” He savored the pain in the few seconds before it faded, and curled his hand around both their cocks, squeezing gently.

  Arjuna hissed and sucked right on that spot in the hollow of Kris’s shoulder.

  “Mm,” he said again, arching his neck to give those lips better access. Arjuna nipped the sensitive flesh all around his throat, then kissed every inch of his face—even his eyelids—as his hands roved all over Kris’s arms and chest. His movements weren’t as controlled and seductive as usual but demanding, squeezing, hungry.

  “Are you afraid of missing a spot?” Kris asked, caressing Arjuna’s shoulder blade.

  “Yes. Turn over.”

  “Seriously?”

  Arjuna smacked the top of his thigh in response, and Kris grinned, rolling over. Different parts of his skin began to tingle in anticipation as Arjuna moved down Kris’s back, kissing, stroking, squeezing. When Arjuna reached his buttocks, Kris ground his erection into the sheets and earned another smack for squirming too much. The impact of Arjuna’s palm on his thigh ricocheted right to his dick, and he groaned.

  “I’m going to keep misbehaving if you punish me like that.”

  “I have other ways.” Arjuna stroked the soft flesh on the inside of Kris’s thighs, stopping a hair’s breadth from his balls and moving his fingertips away, again and again until Kris bit the pillow in frustration.

  “Okay, okay, I’ll behave. I’m your willing slave. Tell me what to do.”

  “Turn around.”

  Kris didn’t need telling twice. He twisted onto his back, and Arjuna kissed down the center of his chest. He inhaled sharply when Arjuna’s mouth closed around his cock, tongue spreading over the head as his tight lips stretched the skin down and enveloped Kris in his warm mouth.

  “Fuck, yes,” Kris said, closing his eyes and burying a hand in that thick black hair.

  Arjuna went deep, until his nose nudged Kris’s stomach, then drew back slowly, curling his tongue around every inch. Kris had no room in his brain for anything but the sensations. Everything else was irrelevant, even the forced secrecy. They loved each other, and they fit together, and it was so close to perfection when they were alone that the outside world and what it thought didn’t matter, not even to Arjuna.

  All he could say was his lover’s name, not asking for more or less, but just for the pleasure of saying it. Until, “I’m going to come.”

  Arjuna squeezed his thigh to show he’d heard, but continued the slow, tight pressure of his lips down the length of his cock.

  Kris came with a long groan, feeling the last of the day’s tension leave him as his muscles tightened and then relaxed, sinking into the clean sheets. Arjuna moved back up the bed and continued caressing and sucking, until Kris’s body stopped feeling like jelly and he could move again. He took Arjuna’s still-hard cock in his hand and began to shimmy down the bed.

  Arjuna resisted, pushing Kris onto his back instead. “No. I’m spoiling you today.” He reached over to the bedside drawer for the lube.

  “Have I done something amazing I don’t know about?”

  “Yes.”

  “What?”

  “Existing.” He knelt between Kris’s legs, and watched his eyes as he pushed one lubed finger inside. Kris waited until the instinctive urge to resist passed, and breathed deep, forcing his body to relax. It was easy from there, but Arjuna took his time, gentle fingers insistent and patient, until Kris begged him again.

  “Ready?” Arjuna asked, propping himself up over Kris, then holding his erection against Kris’s opening with his free hand.

  “Always,” Kris mimicked, and Arjuna’s cock pushed inside him.

  Arjuna had been hard for a long time already, but he seemed in no hurry to come, focusing all his attention on Kris. All Kris could do was rock his hips and hold on tight as Arjuna rubbed in all the right places and stroked every inch of him like he was making a sculpture. Except for when he crushed his mouth against Kris’s like a starving man unable to resist, he stared into Kris’s eyes and his eyes were hungry too.

  It was like the early days, when Kris had to teach him how to be with a man, and Arjuna had watched his face intently for feedback on every move, frowning in concentration like he was in an exam. Kris had loved him before the sex got good, loved him through the awkwardness and the fumbling and the blushes.

  Kris grew hard again, and Arjuna wrapped a hand around his cock, thrusting harder as Kris began to moan and timing his release so they came together.

  Kris was wrung out in the delicious, spent afterglow of a good workout.

  “I’m glad I do the existing thing so well,” said Kris.

  “Me too.”

  They lay in silence as the sun went down and the room grew dark, foreheads pressed together, Arjuna curling Kris’s hair around his fingers.

  Kris kissed him, slow and lingering, and traced circles on his hips. “Ready for round two?”

  “Not tonight. That was perfect.”

  “And doing it again will make it less perfect?”

  “No. I’m just tired. I… I’m seeing my parents tomorrow. Preparing for the festival.”

  And finally, Kris understood. That was why Arjuna was quiet and distracted, and either unable to look Kris in the eye or unable to look away. The only surprise was that he had let Kris stay over—how early was he going to get kicked out, holding his toothbrush and an assortment of lube, when Arjuna began to panic about his parents getting the arrangements wrong and walking in on them?

  He tried to keep his tone light. “Preparing weeks in advance, huh? She’s a lucky plant to get all this love. Christmas trees get evict
ed a week after the big day, and they don’t even get to keep any of the gifts.”

  “At least some of them get you looking after them, until they’re sold.” He took Kris’s hands in his and stroked the palms. “You have magical hands for plants. Healing hands.”

  “I do have a talent for handling wood.”

  Arjuna smiled and kissed his knuckles. “Yes, you do. You know, we should stay up and talk tonight, like we used to.”

  “Don’t you need sleep for tomorrow?”

  “No. I need you.”

  “Okay. Just one thing first.”

  “What?”

  “Are there any leftovers? I’m starving.”

  Arjuna rolled his eyes.

  BREAKFAST WAS bedmi puri—fried flatbreads and potato curry. Eating spicy food for breakfast was one of the many things that no longer seemed strange to Kris because everything he did with Arjuna felt right.

  He finished the last mouthful and stood up. “I’ll wash up.”

  “No, leave it,” said Arjuna. “I need to talk to you.”

  “You want me to leave dirty plates on the table? You are ill.”

  Arjuna stared at the table.

  Kris sank back into his seat with an uncomfortable stomach. “What’s wrong? Is there something else, with your mum?”

  Arjuna opened his mouth and made several false starts. The sensation in Kris’s stomach grew stronger. Not butterflies fluttering, but nasty little centipedes crawling around his intestines.

  Arjuna licked his lips, and the words came in a rush. “My parents have been trying to arrange a marriage for me.”

  “Oh.” Kris sat back in surprise, then laughed. “Oh dear. It’s kind of sweet in its naivety, like setting up a nun on Tinder. I suppose this is the upside to my family disowning me—all I have to put up with is the annual Christmas card and a frosty message wishing me Season’s Greetings and hoping I’ve learned to be less gay over the past year.”

  Arjuna’s face didn’t change. “I’ve agreed.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve agreed. I’m getting married in the winter.”

  “What?” Kris stood up, unable to process.

  Arjuna rubbed a thumb on the kitchen table. “All Mum wants is to see me married. She won’t… be at peace unless she does.”

  Kris didn’t know where to put his arms. He put his hands on his temples, then crossed them behind his head, then left them hanging by his sides. “I’m sorry about your mum. I really am. But that’s crazy. You can’t get married to please someone else. Married. It might be what she wants, but she’s not the one who’ll have to live with it. Oh, shit.” He grimaced. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean….”

  Arjuna acted like he hadn’t heard. “I’m meeting her today.”

  “I know. You said.”

  “Not my mother. My wife.”

  Breakfast turned into bile and bubbled up Kris’s throat. “Your wife? Can you hear yourself? You’re gay, Arjuna.”

  “No. Not to them.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “You knew what you were getting into. You knew I wasn’t going to come out, that it all had to be secret, that I wasn’t going to tell anybody. You knew from the start.”

  “I never knew you would have a fucking wife!” Kris ground his knuckles into his forehead and tried to lower his voice. “Dammit. Okay. We’ll work it out, okay? You can tell your wife you have to travel with work regularly. We’ll stay at mine. I’ll keep it tidy and buy some proper damn food. And you can, I don’t know, join a sports club or something that takes you out of the house on Saturdays. We’ll work it out.”

  Arjuna shook his head. “I’m not going to cheat.”

  “What, you’re going to tell her about us? Yeah, that’ll go down well.”

  “Kris.” Arjuna dug his fingernails into the table. “This isn’t a confession. It’s… I’m ending this. Us.”

  All the air left Kris like he’d been punched in the guts. Even his anger froze, leaving his limbs cold and weak. “You’re leaving me? For a woman you haven’t met?”

  Silence.

  Kris hit the table. It shook. “Stop sitting there like that! How the hell can you be so calm?”

  Arjuna stood up, scraping his chair across the tiles with a sound that burrowed into Kris’s teeth. “I’m not calm! I’ve been living with this, dreading this, not sleeping because I imagine over and over again, every night, how I can tell you.”

  “Then don’t! Call it off. Call them now.” Kris grabbed Arjuna’s phone from the counter and threw it at him. It hit Arjuna in the chest before he caught it.

  “I’m not calling it off.”

  Kris let out a strangled scream of frustration and kicked the table leg. “This is fucking insane. Listen to yourself. You’re going to marry a woman, spend the rest of your life in a loveless marriage, for what? For some stupid tradition from the Dark Ages?”

  Arjuna kicked the table too. Kris hadn’t seen him lose his temper in years, not since that long, painful struggle when they first fell in love.

  “You’ve never got it, have you? That’s all it is to you—some ridiculous, backward tradition. British imperialism alive and well in 2018, the noble Kristopher Morris dragging the brown savages out of the Middle Ages and into the light, sneering at us for talking to plants and caring about what our parents think.

  “Well, you know what? I also live in 2018. I’ve seen your light, and I prefer my backwards darkness.” He kicked his chair and it clattered onto the tiles. “I choose my family. I choose Tulsi. I choose the smell of sandalwood and incense, the hum of a hundred voices singing at arati, the taste of maha prasadam. I will not turn my back on my culture.”

  Kris stared at Arjuna, breathing hard.

  “So,” he said, finally, “you’re turning your back on me instead.”

  Arjuna closed his eyes for a moment.

  Kris raised his voice, flinging words like bullets. “This isn’t about you being some noble hero, true to your beliefs. It’s about you being so afraid of who you are that you’d rather live a lie than face it. You’re a coward.”

  Arjuna didn’t move.

  “Look at me,” Kris hissed. “Fucking look at me.”

  He did, and no matter how controlled his body was, those deep brown eyes showed his despair. Kris broke. His voice cracked as he said, “I love you.” No response. “You love me.”

  The silence cut him to the bone.

  How could Kris not have felt this coming? How could he have judged Arjuna’s mood so wrong, even as he forgot things and had flour in his hair and cooked all of Kris’s favorite food?

  “My God,” Kris said. “You planned this all. My favorite meals, the ‘perfect’ sex, the night of pillow talk. It was all a goodbye.” He sank into the chair and covered his eyes. It didn’t hold the tears back, so he let them fall. “You didn’t think I deserved to know, as well? To savor our last day together? I don’t remember the last time you touched me, because I wasn’t paying attention. I didn’t make our last kiss count. I deserved to know.”

  Arjuna sat down too. “You did. I should have told you sooner, I know that. I am a coward. I just… I wanted you to be happy as long as possible, until the very last moment.”

  “Happy?” Kris’s laugh choked him.

  “You know I want you to be happy.”

  “Then stop this nonsense.”

  Arjuna’s voice was unsteady. “Kris, we’re not the only two people in the world. I can’t break my mother’s heart. I have to do what’s right.”

  “This isn’t right. It’s not right. We love each other.”

  Kris couldn’t see Arjuna’s face, but he heard the sigh.

  “I’m sorry,” Arjuna said.

  “Fuck you.” Kris wiped his eyes hard and walked out. That awful plant fluttered in a blur of green as he swept past, trying to hold himself together until he was alone.

  JANUARY 19—a summer wedding. Everybody agreed on the date, sitting in Arjuna’s future in-laws’ living room,
eating kachoris made by Sharanya’s mother.

  Mr. and Mrs. Mehta had bought Arjuna burfi with intricate decorations. His parents gave Sharanya gold bangles.

  The ring he had bought was gold and made her skin glow. She kept touching it, turning it around her finger while her mouth twitched to contain a smile. Arjuna kept worrying his ring, loosening it and then pushing it back on before it fell onto the carpet.

  It wasn’t as bad as the first meeting, where he’d barely been aware of what he was saying or doing. Luckily, their parents did most of the talking—he and Sharanya mute while they discussed arrangements. He’d felt fourteen again, listening to his parents debate which subjects he should take for his HSCs, but at least he didn’t have to come up with anything interesting to say.

  Today, he felt like a zoo animal, his cage surrounded by expectant guests. After the rings had been exchanged, Mrs. Mehta had suggested Sharanya might like to show Arjuna her degree certificate, framed on the wall in a nook at the end of the room, and they had taken the hint.

  “This isn’t awkward at all.” Sharanya smiled at her hands as she twisted them in front of her lap.

  “No,” Arjuna agreed. “It would probably help if they were better actors.” He tipped his glass at the other side of the room where both their sets of parents were pretending to be engrossed in conversation instead of straining to hear their every word.

  He had no energy to make scintillating conversation. It felt like he’d torn off his personality and forced it out along with Kris.

  “What do you do?” he asked, talking loudly to drown out his thoughts.

  His father shot him a frown from across the room. Brilliantly inventive question, son.

  Sharanya looked confused and glanced at the degree certificate. Arjuna cringed. They’d been standing in front of it for the last five minutes.

  “Sorry, I—”

  “Don’t worry.” She laughed. “I’m nervous too. I’m a doctor. Such a cliché, right? Living the Indian dream.”

  “At least you aren’t a pharmacist.”

  She grinned. “I really wanted to be a teacher, but…. So I chose pediatrics.” The grin faded, and her hands twisted faster. “Do… do you like children?”