Crow drenched in her black outfit, Janet King ran in the rain towards a cafe. She had forgotten her umbrella this morning. From his high dry place, Rashid Ali, a regular at the cafe saw her through its wide open glass windows. He raised an eyebrow, eyeing at Janet’s curves through the wet clothes. He knew Janet had to come inside the cafe for shelter -- in a moment she did. She came through the door and sat down at the next table. Rashid was sitting at an angle but he could view Janet’s side profile -- high cheekbones, long sharp nose, and chiseled cheeks, fair. Rashid bent forward on the chair to get a closer look when Janet also noticed him. Their eyes met and they smiled. Rashid waved at the waitress. She came and took his order of two coffees. The waitress shrugged, thinking that he was going to have both? Rashid saw that and pointed the coffees to be served to Janet’s table. She had opened her purse to count her money to check if she had enough for a cuppa.
The waitress saw that she was counting. She came over and told her to stop because her coffee had already been paid for. “Who?” Janet asked. “Him,” the waiter said and winked. Janet blushed looking at Rashid and Rashid took this opportunity to move to her table.
“I am Rashid Ali,” he said.
“I am Janet King,” she said.
“May I sit?” he asked.
“Yes, of course,” she said.
Rashid told her that he was an architect. He owned his firm. It was called Shelter. But she told him that she was a writer and was always out of pocket. He spoke an oriental language, Bangla, and she, a pure Anglo-Celtic -- Irish English. He told her he grew up in Dhaka but had been living here a long time. She told him she had moved in recently from Ireland.
The coffee arrived. He asked her if there was a chance he could have her phone number. She told him that he could follow her on Instagram. And she would follow him back. At that, they finished the coffee and left. She went into the blinding rain and he got in his Mercedes. He looked at her through the rearview mirror as she crossed the road. Maybe, he could offer her a ride, he thought. He started the car and turned around to find her on the pavement. A gusty wind rose. He saw her walking, as she pushed through the winds. Rashid stopped the car and opened the door to the passenger seat to invite her. She refused and continued to walk. Rashid didn’t give up. He snapped his finger twice over the wheel as he stalked her.
The wind was enough to reckon with. On top of this Rashid didn’t make it easy. How far was he going to follow her, she thought, she felt he was snail-pacing behind her and maybe his stares were drilling a hole through her back. But she was adamant, just as he was. The car went over a dip at which point she started running. What? Hadn’t she already told him that he could follow her on Instagram? What else did he want? Rain or sunshine, she wasn’t going to get into his car at all. They had only just met.
Rashid wasn’t giving up. He followed her to the bus stop. As she waited for the bus, he waited for her at the curb to the road with the hazard lights on. Janet looked at him and gestured. “Why? He snapped his thin long fingers. She was frightened. She thought he was stalking. She should call the police. In the meantime, the bus arrived. She got on and took a window seat. As the bus moved, Rashid Ali followed the bus. The bus stopped near her house. She got off.
He was there in his Mercedes. Looking at her smiling and eyeing her figure up and down. Janet felt naked before him. She felt he was looking at her breasts right through her clingy top. “Now, wait a minute,” Janet thought. She called the police. Rashid got the drift and drove away.
Later in the day, she sat before Instagram and found herself rapt in morbid fascination. She traced Rashid Ali. There he was. She realized they had two mutual friends, even. She wanted to find out about his posts. She realized, Rashid followed nude art. She thought. “If he was an architect, why would he follow nude art?” Anger rose in her that she thought Rashid had flirted with her and had taken her for someone cheap. It wasn’t friendship he was interested in. It was something else -- crudely of sexual nature. She didn’t follow him back, but he started following her. He started to comment, “gorgeous.” But no comments on any of her writerly posts. “Hmm,” Janet thought. Maybe she should block him, just a click away. But she stopped. She began to follow him instead. His pictures triggered a rising emotion within her -- the stubbles, the cute smiles, the romancing with sunglasses with or without them. “Why? She was indulging him?”
She got off Instagram but she couldn’t get him out of her head. She thought about him through the day; she thought of his piercing looks and the power of pictures, “This was silly, I should have gotten over him by now.” Yet, she could not. Days went by, weeks, even a whole month had passed. But Rashid Ali had tenanted her mind. It was overpowering -- she was trolling his nudes, now. “This man is a sexual offender, and obsessed with nude women,” but he was also ensnaring her unduly. She lacked the will to disengage from his pictures.
He had also stopped flattering her. And stopped watching nude girls. Janet hoped maybe he stopped because he had sheltered her in his heart and in his mind. Maybe, there was hope in the secret garden of her heart too for a lush growth, now that the thorns had been weeded out.
The Piker Press moderates all comments.
Click here for the commenting policy.