Sandalwood Pt. 02

"I guess I made myself available to you a few months ago partly because I was lonely with both kids out of the house, and partly..." she finally met Cole's eyes. "... partly because I always wondered what would have happened in your portable that day if I'd done more than just thank you for being a great teacher." A heavy silence hung in the air.

"We're both schmucks," Cole finally said, dumbfounded.

"No, we were responsible people who didn't want to destroy two families. But now we're going to do things differently," Maya replied with purpose as she rose from the table and wiped her eyes. She went to the top kitchen drawer, retrieved the scissors, and held them out handle-first toward Cole. He stared up at her, baffled.

"Have you ever looked closely at my necklace?" Maya asked him, holding it out. "There's no clasp--just a loop on either end of the chain. The pendants in the middle are strung on this cotton thread tied to each loop. Cutting it is the only way to take it off." Cole hesitated. "Turn it around to the back if you're nervous about the blade being near my neck," Maya said.

"It's not that," Cole said. "Isn't it an intensely personal thing to take it off for the last time? I remember the last time I took off my wedding ring."

"You were alone then, and still raw from the pain," Maya countered. "I can't think of anything more fitting than the man who will escort me into my future helping me cut ties with my past." She offered him the scissors again.

Cole took them and turned the cotton thread to the nape of her neck while she held her hair out of the way. With one snip, the gold pieces fell like rain to the tile. After Cole retrieved the last piece from under the table, he held the glittery pendants and chain in his palm, all still warm from Maya's body heat.

"What do we do with these?" he asked her.

"Sell them and give the money to the nearest soup kitchen," she said going to the cupboard for a Ziploc bag. "I don't want any residue lingering in our new life together."

Our new life, Cole repeated in his head, his heart leaping with joy. Maya took off her toe rings as well, also holdovers from her marriage to Ram. She dropped them in the baggie, then picked up her phone. After writing out a text, she handed it to Cole and went back to the stove to make sure their dinner wasn't burned.

Beneath dozens of messages that read 'safe,' there was Maya's sole text back to her estranged husband. Ram, it read, I need a divorce. I have fallen deeply in love with a wonderful man and I want to spend the rest of my life with him. Please send me an email or physical address where I can send you the papers immediately.

Cole left Maya's phone on the counter, making it to the stove in two steps and holding her face while kissing her long and deep.

"Don't get all excited," she said after they came up for air, "The naan is a touch burnt." He looked at her wryly. "Right, right," she went on, "fuck the naan?" Cole gasped as he laughed, hearing her curse for the first time.

"Maybe this isn't a good idea after all," he said, holding her close again. "I'm obviously a bad influence."

"No, you just allow me to be myself," Maya said, nuzzling Cole's beard and then breaking away to grab the plates. Cole set out the potholders and brought the naan and spicy cauliflower to the table. "Do you know how Ram would have reacted if I'd pulled that commando stunt with him?" Maya continued, sitting down and putting a piece of naan on Cole's plate, then her own.

"He would have been appalled. He would have said I wasn't being safe and asked what age I thought I was. He definitely wouldn't have been turned on."

"You don't have to answer this if you don't want to," Cole started. "But were you ever in love with him?"

"Not even a sliver the way I'm in love with you," Maya replied without needing to think about it. "The idea in arranged marriages is that you fall in love after getting married. And it genuinely works for a lot of people. But it's hard to do that with someone who doesn't respond much to romance. We were happy in the beginning, but he was always very conservative. We were just kind of... within our roles, if that makes sense."

"I have to ask," Cole said, "did you really not have sex any time in the three years between him and me? Like, not even a vibrator?"

"Geez, I knew you'd bring this up again," Maya shook her head, smiling. "The answer is no, I didn't. I was trying to manage two pre-teen boys who, for all intents and purposes, just lost their dad. I was already exhausted and didn't have time for men." She paused to take a bite.

"Also, I know tonnes of women swear by their vibrator, but it's just not for me. Sex for me is all about interacting with my partner. I want to feel his weight on top of me... the warmth of his skin... his breathing changing when I turn him on. I guess that's why I like to tease you so much. When I didn't get much of a reaction from Ram after a few years, I stopped trying."

"Maya," Cole said thoughtfully. "You've told me snippets about him here and there. At first I thought something was wrong with him that he'd leave a beautiful wife and two amazing sons to live in the mountains.

"But now I'm thinking he never wanted any of this in the first place. What if it was family pressure or something that made him agree to marry you?" Maya gave him a sad nod while ripping off another piece of flatbread.

"I wouldn't be surprised. I wasn't that mad about him leaving me, but Tejas and Manav were only 11 and 12. He considered his responsibilities to be discharged, though, because he was only thinking of his financial responsibilities. We only had a bit left on the mortgage and I'd been back at work for a few years so I could take care of running the house on my own income.

"He switched the title of the house solely to my name and closed out his other affairs, but I couldn't believe how coldly he treated the kids," she said. "There was nothing he could have said to help them understand, but he didn't even try."

"Wait a second," Cole said between bites, "The day we shovelled snow together, you said this house isn't registered in your name."

"I said the house isn't under the name of Maya Kumar. Maya is just a nickname since I was small. My legal name is Jaanaki." She spooned some more cauliflower onto her plate, then Cole's. "And as long as we're on this, I replaced a lot of stuff after Ram left, including my bedroom furniture. So rest assured that all this time, you were fucking me in my house, in my bed."

"It's going to take me some time to get used to you saying that word," Cole snickered.

They cleaned up and watched a movie until Cole felt Maya's head flop onto his shoulder, then jolt back upright. After checking everything downstairs was switched off for the night, they went upstairs where Maya fell asleep immediately. Cole thought about how feeling her wrapped against his side would never get old, and he watched her peaceful face for a few minutes.

Then he thought about everything he needed to do. Definitely gonna get her another necklace, but would she want a ring? Wait, stupid, does she even want to get married again? Maybe we could just live together? He frowned. But what would the kids think about that? His breathing soon fell in sync with Maya's and the questions faded from his mind.

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