i s h t a r r i a........

From Ankawa.com

Apprehensive of being caught red-handed , I returned to my seat with my little treasure enfolded in my hand. I skimmed the office area around me, ensuring that I wasn’t been preyed upon, and with a fluttering heart, I opened the drawer pretending to be looking for something inside. I hurriedly threw the small piece of paper inside, and pushed the drawer back with the same speed, eyes still sweeping the vicinity, ascertaining no one was spying on my “grand secret.” Assuming normality, I leaned back in my chair for a few moments, trying to catch my lost breath, and controlling the pleasurable sensations of my body. Patience wearing thin, I re-opened the drawer seconds later, and unfolded the paper I had placed inside, not forgetting though to grab my small mirror that I kept in the drawer, in order to give the pretence of a routine feminine checking of make-up. My eyes surveyed the office one last time before they devoured avidly the words on the paper. It was a concise letter of six or ...

I sensed a delicious warmth pervade my whole body as I walked next to him the nearly two hundred meters that took us outside the building. It was an incredibly sensational feeling, something novel that I had never experienced before, and which, much to my surprise, swept away all the abominable sense of desolation and despondency, let alone the bruised ego, and the silent fury that had gripped me, eating on my nerves for days; all seemed to have magically vanished, becoming more like a thing of the remote past. And the occasionally inadvertent brushing of my shoulder against his arm, as we walked side by side, was so stirring. We were like a wonderful twosome that must have been created and made only for one another. And the two halves of the one apple did seem like they were finally placed closely together. My emotions for him flared up, and became so hard to suppress, or inhibit. It didn’t truly matter much then if the whole world was watching our togetherness. My preciously guarded...

From my peripheraI vision, I glimpsed him entering the office at the beginning of the following week, with the same air of composure and unflappability. And after a few shuttling trips between the coffee machine and Tom’s office, wherein he had stationed himself, chatting for most of the duration, he finally entered my office when the opportunity offered. His familiar footstep heralded his entry, but I lacked the least desire to raise my head, much less welcome him. The pile of papers before me had become my only asylum, wherein I buried my slaughtered pride under a tumultuous sea of shock and pain. Desperation had eventually taken me over, bringing up an incapacitated calm, which challenged and subdued his silence as he stood near my desk. “I’m leaving at the end of this week,” he proclaimed calmly. “You’re going to follow me in about two months.” He dictated his unilateral plan with an air of vexatious sureness. I had always seen so much love and affection in his eyes not to recogni...

Despite its enfeebling blow, the encounter with mum seemed to have unencumbered me of the abominable sense of guilt that had been beleaguering me for the past few months for hiding the secret of my romance with Martin from my parents. And despite the worrisome uncertainty of my parents’ reaction, I drifted into a tranquil and peaceful sleep the moment my head touched the pillow, totally oblivious of the roughshod treatment that Martin was designing for me, and which was going to make everything else seem relatively light and bearable. Having brought the interrogation to a close, mum was anxious to take me home, but I escaped her persistence by claiming exhaustion and fatigue. Dina supported my excuses, sparing me yet another weighty encounter, this time with my dad, which I, given the already charged situation, was desperate to put off as long as I could. Mum, anyhow, left tight-lipped. And from the little she had breathed, I gathered that she was going to discuss the matter in depth ...

Mum wasn’t naïve enough, however, to buy my defensive claim that Martin was like any other suitor. “Is he?” Mum asked, arching her eyebrow. “Well, listen up Liana,” she carried on with a firmer tone. “Dina has told me everything that I needed to know, but I want to hear it from you now; and when I say everything, I mean it, Liana! You hear me? Everything!” I straightened slightly, leaning my back against the headboard, and I sat still for a few moments, my heart thumping wildly, and my mind trying hard to marshal its jumbled thoughts in preparation for the arduous “cross examination.” Well, it was judgment day alright! Notwithstanding, it dawned on me that I mustn’t bury my head in the sand and indulge myself in wishful thinking. For any further attempt to blot out or obscure the truth had not only become utterly unfeasible, but was also futile since it wasn’t going to serve any purpose. Moreover, I was racing with time. Martin was in the process of arranging for his final departure ...

I leaned against the copier, my back pressed to it, and stood, hands folded against my chest, anxious for an explanation. He maintained what seemed to be an everlasting silence, settling his smiling eyes provocatively on mine. My thin patience ran even thinner, and surprisingly contrary to my shy nature, I took the initiative, killing the nervous wait, “What is this all about?” “I told you,” he replied and reiterated calmly his previous reply, “It’s about time.” His provocative demeanor inflamed further my stifled rage, which I sensed now to be surging, engulfing my head and burning my face, which must’ve been glowing red. Despite my befuddlement, I was aware of how much he was enjoying this ungoverned manifestation of emotions. “And what’re you up to now?” I asked, assaying hard not to betray my feelings. But such self-control was unnecessary since the question in itself was quite revealing, and had said it all. I was hoping that he was surely going to talk about us, about me,...