Mistress

..not of spices.

He called it being practical. I liked to think of it as love. I believed that it would hit him one day. I continued to believe that, even after his daughter was born.

He had told me he couldn't love her. So why do you have children with someone you don't love?

It wasn't love at first sight. It wasn't even love after a thousand sights. But it was definitely a spark. A spark we both carry even today. All these years later. But all I remain in his life still is just a spark.

'When there is no future, there is no point in even trying'. He had told me this years ago when I uttered the marriage word. If there was no future then, how are we still together? in the future...all these years later?

Or was that just a ruse to blind me? to lead me on to believe that I still mattered to him. In spite of having a wife and children and the so called happily married life.

I am not a lover. Never even been called a girlfriend. Not even a friend.

We are a kind. The mistresses. Soul-less and heart-less. Nurtured by life to live without any expectations. To accept just a smile or a touch as a gift. This was not what I would have taken by choice. But this is what life offered me as a choice. His companionship was far too precious for me to give up. It was easier to share it with another person than forgo it altogether. That wasn't my idea either. It's what he decided was best for us.

It was always him making the decisions. He decided I shouldn't be allowed to stop loving him. He decided it was alright for him to be loved by not just me.

A fate I wouldn't wish on anyone I care for.. Mistress.. the kind to be never missed or too kind to be missed?

The other woman

I have never called anyone my best friend.

Good friend – Yes. Best friend – Never. 

I am not a believer of the concept of having the ‘best’ of anything. As far as I see it, it’s all a relative comparison. Never definite.

And so she was my good friend. I always called her that.

My close friend.

She knew me like no one else did. I could tell her my worst fears, my favorite memories, my darkest secrets, the confusing questions. I could talk to her about anything under the sun.

And so when he came into my life she was the first person to hear about it. I have gone on endless conversation sprees just to let her know how much he means to me. How happy he makes me. How effortlessly he could make me smile. How his one touch or look could send a thousand waves in me.

She smiled. Each time I described him. She smiled to let me know she was happy for me. 

Happy that I was finally getting the love I had lost faith in.

I was happy too. Happy when I got them to meet.

It took not a day, or a week. It took months. Or maybe even a year. 

I guess for someone who was always the first to tell her about anything in my life, she had decided that I should be the last one to know about this new change in her life. And invariably, a huge change in my life too.

Thus, on the fateful day as I watched the two pieces of my heart walk hand in hand, I knew I was right.

There really is nothing best in this world. Not even good. I thought I had lost trust in learning to love ever again. Turns out I have lost trust in having a friend too.

I have read someplace; it takes one woman to understand another. It also takes only one woman to hurt another.