Chapter 33

She was as alluring in the daylight as she had been in the darkness. Then, she had resembled a panther in her habitat. Now, she was a cheetah in search of a kill.

She was dressed in a bright red wraparound top and a very short very tight black skirt. The top, little more than a red bandage around her breasts, was transparent enough to reveal the darker shade of her aureoles. A transparent synthetic jacket worn over the top added to the peek-a-boo effect. Her hair was done in a chirpy coed double ponytail. The shoes were stilettos and they arched her superbly conditioned calves and ankles in a way that tennis champs would have envied.

She made Arif just want to stand and stare. Get a bag of caramel popcorn and project her on a screen and you could watch her for hours, moving, smiling, walking, talking, bending, etc. Meet Lena Kapoor, Playmate of the Millennium.

He kept his eyes off her bare thighs as he slipped into the front seat of the Pajero and shut the door.

"Hi," he said.

She didn't reply. Just slipped on a pair of aviator Raybans and gunned the engine. An elderly man shambling across the driveway -- Mr Advani again, he realised -- lurched forward as the menacing 4WD roared directly at him. For a heart-stopping moment, Arif thought she was going to run him down, but she turned just a tad at the last moment, and the Pajero brushed past the octogenarian with millimetres to spare. They were on the main road and coasting along before Arif realized he had been holding his breath.

He released it slowly, glanced at her, and grinned in what he hoped was a devilishly handsome way.

"So, like, where are we going?"

Lena didn't even look at him. She swerved around a snail-paced autorickshaw, almost side-swiping the poor guy, then shot out through the signal just as it began to change to red. And then they were on the highway, and she was pushing the Pajero about as fast as it could go.

Finally, when she was doing a steady 80-plus, she tossed her head back and said: "Your wife's a real bitch."

He blinked. "Um ... I didn't know you knew Sarla."

He realized how idiotic that sounded, and added: "So what did you mean on the phone? When you said you heard about Sarla? Heard what exactly?"

She glanced at him. Her eyes were inscrutable behind those stone-cold aviators. But he thought she was smiling. Amused at his naivete.

"Don't tell me you don't know?"

"Know what?"

"What your wife's been up to these last few months?"

He heard the irritation in his voice as he answered:

"What's she been up to?" She was toying with him and he didn't like it.

She took off the Raybans, revealing bright, flashing, predatory eyes with a demoniac twinkle in them, put the glares on the dash, and patted his thigh, all in one smooth motion, taking both hands off the steering as if she was standing still not hurtling along at 100 kmph.

She smiled at him in a way that made his pulse race and said: "Why don't I just show you?"

She squeezed his thigh hard enough to make his muscles jump, and fed the Pajero more power, increasing speed as she sped him to wherever it was she was taking him.