The Anniversary

Aditya had been vague all week, which Pooja had taken as forgetfulness. He was not forgetful, as it turned out — he'd booked a room at the Taj, arranged for her mother to take the children, and told her only to pack for one night with no further detail. Standing in the hotel room — all warm light and crisp white linen and a view of the water — Pooja felt the particular emotion of being cared for in a way she'd stopped quite expecting. "You remembered," she said. "I always remember," he said. "I just don't always do anything about it." He'd put a bottle of something cold in a bucket and a small bouquet of flowers on the table. Ordinary gestures that felt extraordinary in this context, in this room, on this particular night after eight years. She turned and he was looking at her with the open, unguarded expression he had when he wasn't in any particular hurry to be somewhere or something else. She crossed the room and kissed him. He kissed her back slowly, his hands coming to her waist and pulling her in, and she let herself sink into it without reaching for the exit of habit or momentum or the usual domestic shorthand of tired people who love each other. Tonight there was nowhere to be. Nothing to get back to. Just the room, and the man who had done this, and the fact of eight years that had brought them here. He undressed her carefully. She stood in the good light and watched him watch her, and felt not self-conscious but wanted, which was different — a crucial difference. She undressed him in turn, which she realised she almost never did slowly anymore, and he stood still and let her. They went to the bed with the unhurriedness of people who have nowhere to be. He moved over her, relearning the particular geography of her pleasure with a patience that unravelled her. She told him what she wanted, which she didn't always do, and he gave it — his mouth, his hands, then both, until she was flushed and gasping and gripping the pillow. When he finally came inside her she exhaled the full length of it and wrapped herself around him. They moved together for a long time, finding and keeping a rhythm, and she came with her face pressed to his neck saying his name into his skin. He followed her with his hands tight in her hair. Later, room-service arrived. They ate in the white robes with the view and the pleasant looseness of well-sated bodies, and Pooja thought about how strange and sustaining it was — that after eight years you could still surprise each other. Still choose each other with this completeness. "Next year," Aditya said, "I want to know earlier what we're doing." "Next year," Pooja said, "so do I." They clinked glasses.