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A long time ago.

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In a galaxy far, far away.

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Yoda

DO or DO NOT. There is no TRY.

Darth Vader

No, I'm your father.

Villains

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Long live the Rebel Alliance.

November 20, 2011

Love Game-Part II

Prologue
Part I
My name is R.And believe it or not,I am far from attractive. I am shorter than I'd like to be and although I ain't fat,I don't have a lean, rugged or ripped physique either. So, for me, meeting girls takes work. I'm not the kind of guy women giggle over at during coffee chats or dream about taking home when they're feeling drunk and crazy. I can't offer them a piece of my fame and scope for boasting like a celebrity or a ride in a posh stylish sedan like so many rich dudes do. All I have is the machinery of my mind working quietly behind my forehead, and nobody can see that.

When I look back on my college years, I have one major regret, and it has nothing to do with not studying hard enough, not being nice to my parents, or geting into substance abuse. It is simply that I was never that good with girls. I consider myself reasonably intelligent. I am at heart a good person, and I try to avoid hurting others.But I never became comfortable around women. They intimidated me. In four years of college, female companionship eluded me like the Road Runner always eludes the Coyote.There was a girl named Shalini,and I was head over heels in love with her. But she was too busy with her extracurriculars to notice me.Some two or three random gals expressed  interest in me.However,things never worked out with them.After that, I pretty much gave up hope. Some guys had it; other guys didn't. I clearly didn't.

By the end of the final year,I was pretty downright miserable.And that's when Daksh happened.Daksh was my childhood friend who had moved to Delhi when he was ten.Daksh wasn't any taller, richer, more famous, or better looking than me. But he did possess one quality I didn't: He attracted women. Daksh landed up in the same company as me after college and we started spending a lot of time together. Daksh was what they call a natural. He had lost his virginity at age seventeen, with his class-mate as a sexual experiment, and he had been fucking nonstop since. That was Daksh's gift, his power: giving women the fantasy they kept locked away in some dark unknown corners of their hearts. I chalked this up to a simple difference of personality. Daksh had a natural charm and suave animalistic aplha-male machismo that I just didn't. Or at least that's what I thought, until my friend decided to take me under his wing. What I discovered was that he had broken down his methods to a specific set of rules that anybody could apply,including an average frustrated retard like myself.

"My job ain't really so much as to make you learn stuff,but to make you unlearn the shit you know," I remember Daksh saying, as he made piercing eye contact with me. "I need to get what's in my head into yours.Kicking out the garbage strewn around in your head in the process.Think of this whole business as a game you are playing on your cellphone. It is not real. Every time you try to pick up a chick, you are playing this game." My heart-chambers began pounding overtime. The thought of trying to start a conversation with a woman I didn't know petrified me. Dealing with client escalations and unreasonable Project Managers were a cakewalk compared to this.

"All your fears and insecurities are going to try to fuck you up," Daksh continued. "They are there to try to confuse you, so know right now that your first instincts cannot be trusted at all. You will feel shy,nervous,terrified and self-conscious, and you must deal with it like you deal with a sore throat or a blocked nose. It's uncomfortable, but you ignore it. It's just that irksome anomaly in the equation that we gotta learn to throw away.I need to teach you the whole algorithm—the sequence of moves you need to win.And you will have to solve the goddamn equation over and over to forget how to lose and learn how to win. You will fail and meet with grief.The key is to get better with each and every failure."

"One of the world's greatest mysteries is the mind of a woman," he told me proudly puffing up his chest. "I am gonna teach you how to solve it.The basic chain remains the same—Select, Isolate, Cast a spell, and Kill. The game is S-I-C-K. It's a full-proof formula.A lot of people don't know that.You up for this shit,ol' fella?"

"Umm.I guess so," I hesitantly replied with an unsure face.

"Put a smile on that glum face,my boy.The number one characteristic of a seducer is the smile," he said, beaming an artificial beam. As I got to know him better,I discovered everything about him seemed rehearsed and practised to perfection."Smile when you enter a room. As soon as you walk in a room filled with babes, the game is on. And by smiling, you look like you got your wits in your mouth where they should be and not shoved up in ur ass.It shows you're fun, and you're somebody.You gotta loosen up pal."

"That's just not me," I said. "I look funny when I smile."

"If you keep doing what you've always done, you'll keep getting what you've always gotten.Zilch. So you just have to do what I ask you to over the next few months.Trust me,you are going to see a difference."

Besides  a smile, I learned, the other characteristics of a seducer were culture and sophistication, a sense of humor, being comfortable in your own skin , and being seen as the social center of a room. Over the next few months,he made me join a gym,made me drain my first two months salary into getting a completely new wardrobe and even made me learn some rudimentary palmistry,astrology,face-reading and other cold-reading techniques. "Chicks dig this shit,"he leaned into me and said,chuckling softly.

By the time a person leaves college,he already has a set of established beliefs and rules he wants to live the rest of his life by.But the entire eco-system of my credo and values was taking a beating at the hands of what Daksh was dishing out to me.He was turning my whole world upside down,topsy turvy,hurtling me down a path I didn't know what it led to.Then again,there was my ego to deal with. Taking lessons from a guy on how to hook up with women was the most pathetic thing I'd ever done in my entire life. To do so is to acknowledge defeat, inferiority, and a total surrender of one's self-respect. It is to finally admit to yourself that after all these years, you have been able to figure it out on your own. Those who ask for help are often those who have failed to do something for themselves.  And now I had to go out and make other women bear witness to my humiliating shame and my glaring inadequacies. I was starting to have second thoughts regarding all this.

Until,one fateful day.

As we were walking past a book store, I saw a woman with long earrings and curly shiny hair that danced on her shoulders. She was slim, with smooth, gentle curves, jeans that hugged her body at just the right spots, and a beautiful complexion, like a dreamy creamy butter-scotch dessert. She looked like the rightful heir to the throne of a Barbie doll-house. She walked into the store, and I decided to move on. But Daksh nudged me in the ribs and asked me to take one more look at her through the window. I can't say why but I felt she could be someone I could talk to.She had that intellectual glimmer in her eyes which I hold an inexplicable  fascination for.It was what made me pine away through four years for Shalini.Daksh urged me to approach her. I knew that if I didn't approach her, I'd scold myself afterward and feel like a failure. So I decided to take my first shot at talking to a completely unfamiliar face. Besides, I told myself, she probably wasn't that good-looking up close anyway.

I walked into the store and found her in a corner looking at comic books.I was in luck.She seemed to have the same preference in comics that I did.

"Hey, is that book you holding any good?" I asked her. "I mean I read the last couple of issues and I noticed the storyline was kinda becoming predictable.So what about this one?"

"Ohh!I was just breezing through it," she replied a bit taken aback."I didn't know this book was part of some continuing series."
She held out the book to me."Here have a look and see for yourself,"her shiny eyes glimmered faintly.
I noticed that she was even more beautiful at close range. I had stumbled across a perfect 10. And I had to follow protocol and execute the algorithm.

"He he.Thanks.By the way,I know this is wrong to say," I blurted, "but I just watched a lot of Disney cartoons as a child, and your nose reminds me too much of the adorable snout of Minnie Mouse."

I was worried I'd gone too far. I'd made this ridiculous line on the spot and was probably about to get slapped. But she actually grinned. "Ohh shit,I so used to be called Minnie Mouse when I was in kindergarten," she replied. She was flirting back with me.
Was it just my luck?Or were the rules really working?

I performed the mind-reading number-guessing routine, and fortunately she picked seven. She was amazed.Everyone picks seven.But this was my first time,and my heart almost leaped out of my throat when I uttered "Seven.". I asked her what she did for work, and she said she worked at a software company just like me. The longer we talked, the more she seemed to enjoy the conversation. But as I noticed Daksh's teachings working, I became nervous. I couldn't believe that a woman who looked like this was having fun with me. Everyone in the book store was throwing stares at us. Curiosity.Disbelief.Those had their signatures on their stares.I couldn't go on.

"My friend is waiting outside," I told her. My hands were shaking.I was a bag of nerves. "But what can we do to continue this conversation?"

This was what Daksh taught me. There was no point giving her my phone number, because she might not call. I had to make her comfortable enough to give me her number.I also had to avoid asking for it directly, because she could always say no, and instead lead her to suggest the idea herself.
"I could give you my gmail id," she offered.

Gmail id?Shit!I wanted her phone number,dammit!!
She wrote down her name, followed by her  e-mail address.
No phone number,but I still couldn't believe it.
"I don't hang out outdoors much, though," she warned, as an afterthought. Maybe she was already having regrets.

I didn't get in touch with her after that.But one thing was for certain.There was no going back for me after that day.Daksh's way was my way now.Both love and companionship,as well as,success and accomplishments,are required to seal the circle of life. Half my life's circle was on the drawing board,begging me to complete the missing semi-circle. I was only half a man. I just had to complete my other half.

It was a decision which arose from all the sexual frustration which had accumulated in my system since my adolescence.

It was a decision I regret to this very day.


To be continued..

20 comments:

  1. my my wonderful read, grinning the whole time, waiting for the next part though :)
    It's funny you know what he seemed to have wanted all this while he now regrets. Ha! humans we are never satisfied are we?

    Wonderful writing, word choice and the way your sentenced just melt into one another well i had the whole image in my mind :D
    Looking forward to the next one.

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  2. @Rachika Thanks a lot for the compliments...:-) Let's see what I can cook up for the next part..

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  3. First, forgive me for not commenting on the previous post.
    I read it. I loved it.
    I read this. I loved this too.
    Did someone else tell you, you're an awesome writer? ;)
    I am so waiting for the next part! :D
    And, *Dreamy creamy butter scotch dessert* ? :D :P
    Minnie Mouse. You know a lot of people called me Daisy Duck till recently!? :/ :P

    Next part, asap, please! :)

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  4. Our pasts at times do build our present :)
    It's coming up well! Looking forward to the next part :)

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  5. @Anu Wow!!You really liked it so much??Thanks a lot....And someone called u Daisy Duck??He he...:-D

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  6. @Philo Good to know you are enjoying it so far....:-)

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  7. Hiiiiiiiiiii Rahul please continue the posts...or else i will change my goal to murder you ;):) hey its true..a girls mind forever will be a mystery :p
    hey great fiction..You must be called a Donald duck for humorous part of Rahul.. :) :) keep writing...

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  8. Why can't you shorten it? GRRR!
    But this reads so bloody intriguing, i hate the gap falling between parts.
    Add pictures btw.

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  9. i liked d part wherein he feels like shit when he has to learn d ropes f attracting women. Seems like a game for him... hmm. i kinda already hate that guy.

    wondering how its gonna shape up :) waiting for the next part

    btw, tot f changin d template?

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  10. @Amigo As a matter of fact,I was thinking of discontinuing.The story as I planned it has at least three more parts.You still up for it,my friend??? :-)

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  11. @Crystal I dunno.I am thinkin of discontinuing it.It is becoming very long.I don't think any body will read it...

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  12. @Menachery :-( I don't even know if there is gonna be a next part....

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  13. hi...I loved the story...both, the previous post and this one too...and waiting for the next part....
    I just didn't get the last part of this post...why did he regret the decision??? :-/

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  14. Hello Rahul :)

    I saw a comment that you left on one of Shreya's poems. You mentioned that you enjoyed poems that rhyme so I wanted to come here and invite you to view my blog when you have some free time. All of my poetry rhymes :)

    That was the initial reason for coming to visit but I must say that I'm intrigued by your writing! Whenever I see a long post, I have second thoughts about whether I have the time or desire to read it. That being said, this post held my attention throughout ... SO much that I can't wait to read the next part!

    Yes, I just paid you a *huge* compliment :) :)
    Keep up the good work!
    Fiona

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  15. @ManjuM Story has just started..:-) U will get to know why he regrets it later on...

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  16. @Fiona I read some of ur stuff...awesomenes defined...all of em...thanks for dropping by mam...:-) u have a new fan in me now...

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  17. Thanks for being my new fan, Rahul, and for the great compliments! See you soon :)

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  18. Well, well flirting tips huh? Nice. Been reading your fiction pieces. Have not commented on all of them(sometimes some posts are so good that I forget about commenting. And just want to lap up the other posts.)

    You are seriously good at romantic/love based fiction. I wish I had the guts to post fiction on my blog.

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