He took a seat at the desk, took the cigarettes from his desk drawer and lit one.
She drew closer, sat up on the edge of the desk.
She picked up one of the drawings, the pencil sketch of the house on the hillside. “What’s this one?”
“A house in the Himalayas.” Pride entered his voice. “I designed it myself. A retirement plan. A hotel maybe. I’m not sure yet.” He took the drawing from her, laid it on the table, and fetched a pencil from the desk. He drew two parallel lines through the back of the structure, started them again at the front. “I wanted to build it on a stream, have hydro as well as solar power.” In the background he drew mountaintops, making jagged snow lines near their peaks. “And I wanted it higher up. Somewhere near Rohtang. Or Auli maybe.” She watched him working and was touched by the attention he gave to the work. He put the pencil down and slid the paper away. “But it’s hard to build in Himachal. Permits, local objections. The local deities speak through local men and local men are hard to please.”
“Can’t your father help?”
He bristled at the question. “He’s not God.”
She studied his face.
“This Yamuna plan of yours. It’s pretty godlike. I’ve been thinking of it.”
“Yeah?”
“Thinking about it a lot. I work with someone who only sees the other side. The people being evicted.”
“Is that the someone who called me a joker?”
“In this vision of yours,” she went on, “where do those people go?”
“In my vision they’ve already gone.”
“That’s convenient.”
“Because they’re already getting resettled. You know that, right? They’re getting fresh plots of land, pukka homes, electricity, running water, real toilets. They don’t have to live in slums. They only lived there because the government didn’t build enough housing, but that’s been resolved.”
She wanted to believe him.
He said, “Everyone can win here. We romanticize poverty too much. India doesn’t need to be this way. We can raise everyone up.”
She took a cigarette from his pack and lit it. Shook her head and sighed with wonder. “Sunny, Sunny, Sunny . . .”
He seemed surprised by her tone, the tender use of his name.
She slid off the desk and walked to the window. “We’re so young.” He watched her watching Delhi in the night. “And you make me feel like there’s so much we can do.”
He didn’t speak, but she could feel his gaze enveloping her.
“You know,” she went on, “I wasn’t sure I’d see you again.”
“I was waiting,” he replied after a moment, “for some bullshit article to come out.”
She glanced back at him. “I wouldn’t do that to you. You should know that. I didn’t play anyone that tape. I have it in my drawer at home.”
“Yeah?”
“I listen to it. Listen to you speaking Hindi.”
“That’s not me.”
“Listen to you talking about your father.”
“You look good,” he said.
“That’s one way to change the subject.”
“I want to fuck you.”
She looked at him warily. “Is this how it starts?”
He stood, came up behind her slowly.
“If you want it to.”
She could hear his breathing.
“And then?”
She felt his right hand on her waist.
His left.
His body pressed into hers.
His mouth on her neck through her hair.
“I like to get drunk,” she said, staring out at the glowing city. “I like to see the city from far, far away. Is that so wrong?”
“No.”
“I’m tired of being good.”
She closed her eyes.
* * *
—
“Where are you going?”
She was sliding out of the bed.
“To wash out your cum.”
He frowned and lit a cigarette. “Don’t be so vulgar.”
She laughed because he meant it.
* * *
—
She’d expected it. What she hadn’t expected was the intensity. He’d barely pulled her into the bedroom, barely taken off her clothes, barely pulled her panties down before he’d climbed up behind her, held her wrists in his fists, braced her legs with his own. She was already wet, and he was hard as hell. He pushed himself inside and she’d collapsed to the duvet, buried her head in the pillow, let herself go. “I want you to tie me up. Blindfold me. Take all my senses away.” She felt a flash of desire in him like white-hot metal in the sun.