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  THE BITTER PILL SOCIAL CLUB

  THE BITTER PILL

  SOCIAL CLUB

  Rohan Dahiya

  First published in India 2018

  © 2018 by Rohan Dahiya

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  CONTENTS

  Opening Act

  Chapter ONE

  Running With Scissors

  Chapter TWO

  The Theory Of Comfort Food

  Chapter THREE

  Lonely For You Only (Interlude)

  Chapter FOUR

  Wasted On The Young

  Chapter FIVE

  At Your Place Or Up In Space

  Chapter SIX

  Candy Cigarettes

  Chapter SEVEN

  The Axiom of Icarus

  Chapter EIGHT

  Love Is A Laserquest

  Chapter NINE

  No Remedy For Memory (Interlude)

  CHAPTER TEN

  Milk And Toast

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Second Star To The Right & Straight On ’Til Morning

  Chapter TWELVE

  Ladies Who Lunch (Interlude)

  Chapter THIRTEEN

  Nobody’s Business

  Chapter FOURTEEN

  Jusqu’ici Tout Va Bien

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Rejection, Reflection, Redemption

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  To The Moon And Back (BadluckSoulmate#9)

  Chapter SEVENTEEN

  A Study In Sabyasachi (Interlude)

  Chapter EIGHTEEN

  I Always Thought It Would Be Your Hand (Holding Mine)

  Chapter NINETEEN

  Dreaming In A Technicolor Beat

  Chapter TWENTY

  I Won’t Listen To Your Dogma

  Chapter TWENTY ONE

  The Bougainvilleas Have Wilted (Denouement)

  OPENING ACT

  have aids.”

  It was a typically atypical Delhi restaurant. Everything had the dull aura of contrived eclecticism. It dripped down everything from the walls to the wagging tongues as a dinnertime symphony filled the room. Sana Kochhar stared at her boyfriend and knew three things for certain; that she had to measure her words, that nobody else may hear them, and Daksh Dhiman would not leave without a marriage proposal.

  “Is this your idea of role play?” she tossed her hair back.

  Daksh felt the blood leave his face. “Are you fucking stupid? How does that sound like role play to you?”

  “What else am I supposed to assume from it?”

  “I’m trying to tell you that I’m in serious trouble, Sana. I have AIDS.”

  She leaned in, her voice dangerously low. “AIDS isn’t even a real thing anymore, what the hell is wrong with you? It’s just like a thing in Africa with babies dying and stuff.”

  He looked at her through narrowed eyes. A waiter walked toward their table but Daksh waved him away.

  “Where do you even get such information?”

  “We had a poster in school somewhere about it ya, what’s the big deal.”

  “That was for HIV, not AIDS.”

  “Okay now I know you’re talking crap because they’re the same fucking thing.”

  A chill shimmied across her bare shoulders but she didn’t shudder. It was as though the steady hum of everyone’s voices had suddenly escalated and at the same time her hearing had closed off but for only that very specific, very annoying static sound.

  “Is this like the time that you came up to me and said you have an infection?”

  Daksh rolled his eyes. “It was an STD, and I got it from you.”

  “Well how am I supposed to know you can catch crabs literally without having sex?” She groaned with the grace of a starlet, and then, “Oh my god, is that why we’re here?”

  For the first time that evening, he looked confused. “Were you expecting something else?”

  “The hell I was! I thought super-fancy-date-night was a lead up to one big ass diamond ring.” She dismissed the waiter, prying the wine bottle from his hands. “I fucking wore Chanel for this.”

  “You thought I was going to propose to you? We’re seeing each other for the first time in weeks.”

  She flung her hands in the air and reached into her purse for a cigarette.

  “You can’t smoke in here.”

  She flipped him off and fished for a lighter in the too-small beaded clutch.

  The server drifted over once more. “Ma’am you can’t smoke here.”

  “Do you have any manners? What fucking village are you from?”

  Flabbergasted, he muttered. “Uhmm … Jharsa. But that doesn’t matter madam–”

  Daksh sniggered and waved him away. “You can’t smoke here Sana.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “I’ll buy the stupid restaurant if I have to, I’m smoking!”

  “Ma’am I’ll have to call my manager.”

  Daksh leaned over, “You really can’t smoke here.”

  She lit her cigarette and arced it away from her face. “Wait so what does this mean for us?”

  He clocked an eyebrow, once again at a loss for words.

  “We can still be together right? I mean we’re ‘Sana and Daksh’ for god’s sake. People have us saved together on their phones.” He tried not to flinch at the invisible marquee she drew with her hands.

  “I don’t think you understand the situation Sana–”

  “Oh I know you’re not breaking up with me. I didn’t spend the last five years with you for this new circle-jerk.”

  As much as he hated it, Daksh shivered under her gaze. His thoughts increasingly disconnecting from his consciousness.

  She smashed a fist on the table. “NO!”

  Now people were looking.

  “Look we need to get some things cleared up here, okay? You told me you loved me, I fucking fell in love with you even though we both know that I don’t need it, I don’t need you. But
I fell for you and then you told me you don’t know who you are, I said ‘babe I’m here for you, go find yourself’.”

  She was leaning so far in he was sure the front of her dress would slip off.

  “You said, ‘listen, I love you but I think I might be bi’ and I said ‘I’m here by your side so you can go out and find yourself so long as you come back to me; because I, Sana Kochhar, will always come back to you, because I love you till the freaking end of time’. So now what the fuck more do you want from me that you feel the need to come up with this AIDS stuff, D?”

  All diners within a three-table radius had fallen silent as she stood towering over him like a majestic goddess-bird ready to swoop down on her prey. The unwitting waiter drifted back towards their table but Daksh shook his head in warning.

  “So you really have been cheating on me.” She now fully ignored him. “I don’t know I guess a part of me just always hoped that you wouldn’t actually do it.”

  “Do what?” The table on their right called for the cheque.

  “You know, fuck a dude.”

  One defiant eyebrow rose. “What makes you think I did the fucking?”

  She turned to stone.

  “Are you serious right now?” now her tone was low. Now, she didn’t want anyone else to hear. Not now.

  “You’re telling me that my boyfriend likes it up the ass and didn’t even have the half-wit to use protection? Well, there’s some real irony right there. I do hope you have insurance.”

  “I’m glad you’re able to find the humour in this situation.” He bitterly replied.

  He signaled to the waiter. “I’ll have a Jameson.”

  “Oh my god, is that why you ordered seafood for dinner, because you know I’m allergic to it and, what, you hoped I’d just leave? That’s a low blow, even for you.”

  He took the cigarette from her hands and stubbed it in the salad plate with a twisted grin.

  “Why don’t you just let me know when your dick falls off?”

  “Why the hell would my dick fall off?”

  “Well isn’t that what happens when you get AIDS? What’s wrong with you?”

  “Uhh I’m pretty sure –”

  “And really, how did you not think to use a damn condom. It’s like you’ve learnt nothing in life, I mean for fuck’s sake they even use it in porn now!”

  They resolved themselves to silence.

  “Do you think, I mean, shall I get tested as well?”

  “If you’re asking because your birthday’s coming up then no, you have nothing to worry about. I think you should still get tested though.”

  “Will it do me any good?”

  He drained his drink and called for another.

  “It can’t be of any harm. Enjoy turning 24.”

  The urge to throw her drink on his face hadn’t gone, but she chose to raise it as a toast instead. “Well, that’s that then. Enjoy dying Daksh.”

  “Enjoy living Sunaina.”

  Chapter ONE

  RUNNING WITH

  SCISSORS

  By the time Sana made it to the front door of the restaurant a rash had crawled up her arms. She could feel the heat prickle her scalp and a scream bubbling its way up her chest like the undigested lunch of a rickshaw driver. Nothing, not the satisfaction of the chilly interiors of her car nor the flood of likes on their #datenightselfie could get her mind off it. She sat there in the backseat and screamed into the leather.

  Back at the restaurant, Daksh finished his meal in peace and paid the bill before officially going off the grid. No one would get to know of his passing until much later.

  Sana didn’t realize at what point she’d passed out, but when the car rolled to a stop her head lolled at an angle jolting her out of it. She sat there for two minutes wondering if the night had really happened the way she remembered it or if she’d just been tripping.

  The driver was staring at her through the rear view mirror.

  “Ma’am is everything okay?”

  “Ugh shut up.” She straightened the hem of her dress and checked her chin for any drool, already dreading the moment she’d have to relive the night for her mother.

  Right on cue, Tina Kochhar spotted her from her perch in the living room with him.

  “Sana,” she tittered, “beta how come you’re back so soon? How was dinner?”

  She bit the inside of her cheek to stop from screaming.

  “Mumma, please.”

  Laksh left his cup of tea and rose, towering over both of them with a half smile.

  “Sup Sunny!”

  She opened her mouth to fire back at him but he swooped down and grabbed her hand. Laksh had the kind of eyebrows you could only grow into, as a kid they were so big she wondered how he kept his head upright. Now when they swept up in feigned surprise he looked more handsome than stupid.

  “Oh my god, what happened? Are you okay?”

  Her eyes widened and she tried to get her hand back.

  “Why? No, I’m fine.”

  “Listen”, he clutched her hand, “tell me what happened. Are you feeling alright? What is the meaning of all this? Where’s the ring?”

  Before she knew it, she was raveling under the ferocity of his dark gaze. His smile was cruel and the tears she’d been holding back were threatening to come out. No amount of internal screaming could ease the way her breath hitched in her chest.

  Lakshman Dewan and Sunaina Kochhar had been the best of friends since before most kids learnt their first words, right until they were eleven. Then his parents started fighting, as it often happens when egos are injured, sleeping in separate rooms, going through the motions of a slowly crumbling marriage, and he became someone else altogether. They tried to resuscitate their friendship once more some time towards the end of high school because it was the time to let go of the past but then his older brother forced himself on her at a party and Lakshman once again withdrew completely. Now he would drop in from time to time mostly to make small talk with her mother, raid their fridge, or share a cigarette on her balcony.

  Tina literally came running over, incoherently squealing.

  She could feel her mother’s hands rise to cup her cheeks and she knew it would end badly.

  “Aunty look, her hand! There’s no ring on her finger!”

  The two of them theatrically deflated like clowns but Sana was exhausted. Her chest hurt too much, she wondered if perhaps her dress was too tight and whether bread-and-butter-baskets were a good idea to make up for small talk. The room didn’t have enough air, and the air conditioner was too cold. An itch crawled all the way up her body and the tears came in a hot bumbling mess.

  “Fuck you,” she snatched herself away. “Really, just fuck the both of you.”

  Tina Kochhar hadn’t raised the cuss-monster her daughter had become though truthfully she hadn’t really ‘raised her up’ at all. Who even had the time for that stuff these days? With her bi-weekly card games, the monthly potluck parties, and the nights out with her girlfriends, Tina had decided that no one could expect her to be a full time housewife and a mother, while still maintaining perfect shape with a body fat percentage of twenty-five to thirty.

  She was about to tell her to calm down but Sana was already out of the room, heels hitting on every hard step up to her room.

  “What was that?”

  She looked at him. They really don’t make them like him anymore, she half smiled at the thought.

  “It’s nothing really, she’s probably having an off day sweetie, you don’t think too much about it.”

  “No was it something I said? Should I not have …” there was the briefest flash of hurt in his eyes.

  “Listen, nothing like that at all but I think it’s just that she probably didn’t have a good time you know, or they must’ve had a fight or something. And we all know na how much she’s looking forward to getting engaged. Like, I’m practically holding her back from proposing to him!” she tittered.

  It wasn’t the truth and the
both of them knew it; Tina just had a lifelong habit for making herself the centre of attention.

  She rubbed his arm to comfort him, tossing her freshly shampooed hair to one side.

  “Don’t get depressed about it ya now. Go up and talk to her. I’m sure she’s expecting you to be there already.”

  Laksh was still staring at the trail her daughter had left behind, the air vibrating with her energy. He wasn’t listening to her and she wondered what was wrong with her. Why couldn’t he look at her even if it was just long enough to validate what she’d said? Was it not enough? Was it not enough that she cared about her Sana so much?

  She rubbed his arm again without needing to and gave him a gentle push. Laksh didn’t look back as he left and Tina fell back onto the couch.

  It’s hard to tell the exact age when women start looking old. She stared at the soft fine fabric of her dressing gown, wondering if her skin wrinkled as easily. She grabbed a furious fistful of the fabric and crushed it till her eyes burned with tears.

  One staggered breath came in and out. One more – deeply in and then out. And just like that she didn’t feel like crying anymore. She looked at the half drunk cup of tea that was now cold and lamented – she may not have made it herself but she had taken special care to direct Vikram on how he liked it. The cookies were the special ones that no one else in the house was allowed to touch because they were honey-sweetened and she’d picked them up on her last trip to Italy. It had been the perfect summer. Well, sort of. It was a relatively good trip if it really came down to it because she’d spent a majority of it obsessing over Hassan. Tina firmly believed that it marked the beginning of her husband’s affairs, a fact she reminded herself of every time she met with her boy-toy. As for Hassan, the bitterness that followed had set the tone for the rest of their married life and soon they’d just be a showpiece family.