(As told to Tripti Sharan)
He Didn’t Even Reply To My Message After We Made Love
“Hello?” I finally made the call. Texting wasn’t helping. I panicked but gathered my wits. He owed me this. “Hello, it’s me.” An awkward silence ensued. “Hey listen, I’m in a meeting!” The harsh hollowness in his voice resonated with rejection, much like the silence that was greeting me these days. “I know you don’t want to talk to me.” “Ok.” There, he was gone! He is distant after intimacy just as my friends told me. I kept standing there holding the phone not knowing what just happened. Before this all my texts had gone unanswered.
My relationship with him started with a social friendship
I had known him for around five years through common friends. We interacted on social media. I could at times feel a tug but his eyes hid a harshness, his ‘humour’ a curtness that stopped me from treading further. But one day I did the unthinkable and sent him a friend request. It was as if he had been waiting for me all those years. He used every trick to get my attention, from flattery, to humour, to downright seduction. “Why me?” I once asked disbelievingly. “It’s how you manage a subtle sensuous femininity to your professional side, in a perfectly complimentary fashion that turns me on,” he explained dramatically. A practiced charmer! Yet he drew me like a moth.
Our relationship started shaping up
But soon other things started surfacing. His humor hid a dark streak. He would disappear often but bristled if I ever didn’t match his ardour. He would taunt me for lack of ‘reciprocity’, reacting with an insulting silence. Then one fine day he came to my city. Cancelling all my previous plans I rushed to meet him. He was excited and I, a little jittery. From the way he looked at me, to how he pulled me close, everything was different about him. Yet when he tried to kiss me passionately, I broke off. He was rattled by my rejection. I needed time, but he couldn’t hide his anger and disappointment. “You should have told me that you were not yet ready for this,” he said stiffly. “Let’s watch TV.” My heart melted at the sullen look in his eyes. Like a dark desire he had spread through every sinew, blinding me to voice of reason. I leaned over him. I had taken off my marriage ring.
We made love…
“Nothing happens now. I am just as scared.” He looked like a little boy who had been denied his favourite toy. I laughed and bit his lower lip, feeling his indrawn breath. Soon we were both helpless under the tide that swept over us. We made love, just the way he wanted. I had never felt so brazen with desire. Like greedy lovers we lingered, but soon it was time to go. As I looped my arms around his neck and kissed him goodbye, it was not the warm eyes of a languid lover that looked back at me but the cold eyes of a stranger. I shrugged off a sense of foreboding. He dropped me home. I woke up next morning, missing him and a thousand other things that we could have done together. I had never felt more connected. But he was guarded. “I hope you felt good! You had just about failed,” he declared unjustly. I squirmed but felt guilty. The idea to judge him had never crossed my mind. He changed after we slept together.
Taunts and silence became the way
Over the next few days, from my poor performance to my illogical ‘fear’, he always had something to throw in my face. “It’s not ‘no’ but ‘fear’ that kills me.” I desperately wished for a second chance. But my attempts to come close were either ignored or met by taunts. “I want to talk first!” His jarring words meant anything else and were bent on punishing me. He was showing every sign of withdrawing. He was pulling away after getting close and I could feel that. My self-esteem hit bottom. I quivered but he retorted that he was merely showing me a mirror. This went on for about a month till one day, my patience broke. “I trusted you so much, never thought you were the ‘fuck and forget’ kinds!” I used some harsh and bitter words.
He became totally distant after intimacy
He read but never replied. He had probably written me off. Even lust had an unspoken commitment. He didn’t even commit a goodbye. I felt like he was withdrawing after a hookup. How could he just shut me out? Was I so easy to forget? I don’t know who expected more and who was wrong? Maybe this was how it was meant to be. But all that faced me now, was an unrelenting wall. For days I could not accept that he had become distant after intimacy he had just pulled away after being close. I felt emotionally and physically used. I felt I had cheated on my husband with a man who was just not worth it. The guilt kept killing me and gradually the memory of that one night in bed killed me every night. I realised the very hard way that men get close and then pull away. They are actually looking for a hookup but they give you the impression they are in love and you fall for it.
