The House Cat

“I am a fat house cat, cursing my sore blunt tongue.”

The song plays over and over in my head. I really do think I am a fat cat. I am fat, at any rate. Lazy and large. My double chins will have company soon as will the rings of cellulite around my hips.

The bell rings. As shrill as a rat’s squeak.

I shut my eyes tight.

He shouldn’t have come. It was all wrong on so many levels.

I left the couch reluctantly, leaving an enormous depression on it. My imprint, my legacy.

“Hey.” It was the apathy of his voice that struck me before I recognised his face.

“Y-youu?” I stammered, slightly undone.

Without bothering to reply, he barged in. My adoring sweet hubby.

Dumping his suitcase on the couch, he exhaled as if it was an effort even to sit.

“I will get you some water.”

I began to move towards the kitchen when his words made me freeze.

“Didn’t you have a class today?”

It was a question he had asked casually, almost as an afterthought but it turned on a riot of feelings in my breast.

“Yeah, I did.” I answered truthfully.

Once I had started eating for two, I decided to take a break from teaching in the university. So, I began taking home tuitions instead.

“So, where are the students?” he asked, his eyes already on his booting laptop.

But I didn’t answer and he didn’t ask again. Dev, my husband is not very keen on knowing such things. Actually he is not very keen on me, to be honest.  

                                                                                                      ******

The bell rang again. I looked at the grandfather clock. It was 1 pm and Dev had left a few minutes ago. He had come home only because he had forgotten some files. Now, he would return in the evening after work. Who was at the door then?

“Y-youu?” I stammered the second time as I opened the door. But this time round, my heart was beating strangely, the movements of guilt, I presume.

“Can I come in?” came the polite voice.

“I thought you won’t be coming today, seeing as you didn’t come at your usual time.” I let him in as I did every day.

“I saw Dev climbing up your stairs just as I was taking out my notebook.”

“It isn’t right.” I suddenly said as we took our places on the couch where I had left my impression.

“What?” he asked, his voice gentle and his hands gentler. Not like Dev’s rough fumbling hands. His were softer, more understanding. The hands of an eighteen-year-old. My eighteen-year-old student.

“This. All this isn’t right.” I told him, tears leaking involuntarily out of my eyes. “If Dev comes to know, he would be really hurt.”

“If Dev wanted to know, things wouldn’t have come to this.” He said and licked the teardrops off my cheek. He held me close. The way Dev used to before the pregnancy tests arrived announcing that we would be parents.