Nikita

When Neeraj woke up that morning, the first thing that came into his hands was his mobile phone. Taking a quick look at his still sleeping wife, he walked over to the window and unlocked his phone.

“Well?” He typed a message and sent it to Nikita.

His phone vibrated a few seconds later.

“The pills didn’t work” He saw Nikita’s reply, “I am still pregnant”

His heard sank immediately.

“Are you sure?” He sent another text.

“Of course I am sure” Nikita replied seconds later, “I am still pregnant”

He didn’t know what to do anymore. He was desperately hoping that the pills would work and all his worries would be taken care of but that did not happen. She was still pregnant. He felt as if his world was collapsing right in front of his eyes and all he could do was to wait and watch.

Neeraj was a chemistry professor in the most reputed college of the city. Standing tall at over 6 ft, he was a handsome man of 35 years who had everything that a man could ever ask for, a job that paid well, a wife who loved him, a beautiful daughter, a big house, an expensive car. He had been in love with his wife Neha for as long as he could remember. She was his high school sweet heart and after a decade long love affair, he had gotten married to her. He was a happily married man and then as if to ruin it all, she came along.

It wasn’t something new for him. He was after all a very handsome man and a lot of his female students had crush on him. Some merely admired him, some wanted to get involved with him and some even offered to sleep with him but he always kept a distance. He was serious towards his job, his career and did not want to do anything that could ruin things for him professionally. When Nikita started showing her love interest, it didn’t surprised him but what eventually shocked him was that he too ended up getting involved.

She was the daughter of one of the city’s richest and most influential man. Other than this, there was nothing really too great about her. She was an average looking girl with an average body. Nothing that would make boys run after her or even desire to sleep with her. It was after college one day when Neeraj was just finishing up and getting ready to go home when she walked into his office.

“Nikita” He was surprised to see her still in college so late, “What you are still doing here”

“Nothing” She replied vaguely and walked over to him, “I wanted to talk to you”

“Yeah sure, about what” He put his pen down and turned towards her as she got even closer.

Then without saying another word, and to Neeraj’s shock, she suddenly bent over his chair and put her lips on his.

“VO VO VO” He immediately pushed her back and stood up from his chair, “What are you doing?”

“What?” She seemed surprised at his reaction, “I love you and I want you. Right now, right here”

What really surprised him was her bold approach. He always thought of her as a shy girl who always kept to herself. But here she was, standing in his office in late hours trying to kiss him.

He spent the next one hour that day trying to explain to her that he was married and a relation between both of them was wrong. He tried every approach, every reason, facts like he was way older than her; that he was her teacher but she just wouldn’t listen. After what seemed like an eternity of reasoning, she walked out of the room annoyed but things did not end here. She did not stop. Everyday she tried a little to get closer to him, to win him over and gradually she did. What Neeraj never thought would happen eventually happened. He got interested, he got involved. And the day he first took her to bed, he knew that she was a virgin. He knew that he was her first man.

For the next one year, he kept bringing her to bed over and over again. He tried everything that he ever wanted to but could not ask of his wife. Everything that he had seen in porn movies but never had a chance to perform. She was in love in with him, a man almost twice of her own age and he took advantage of that. He used her in bed in every possible manner and she never said no, just to make him happy. And when she did say no for something, he immediately promised her marriage to get her to do what he wanted.

“Seriously?” She looked surprised when he first mentioned it, “You will marry me? But what about your wife?”

“I will divorce her” He replied vaguely just to kill the topic.

And then he said it again, and again, and kept repeating it for a year. He never wanted to divorce his wife, never wanted to marry Nikita. The sole purpose of his promises was to keep getting Nikita to do everything that he wanted in bed. He was living a life of lust and he intended to keep it that way as long as she was in college. He knew that after three years, once she is gone, things would get over. She will move on with her own life and he will move on with his own.

But he was wrong, so wrong, and when one day Nikita told him that she was pregnant with this child, his heart almost leaped out of his mouth.

Pregnancy was no big deal, Neeraj could have handled that but what truly became a problem was that Nikita wasn’t ready to give up the child.

“You said you will divorce your wife and marry me” She kept repeating, “So do it. Divorce her so we could get married and have our baby”

He did not plan for any of this. His thoughts were only to have fun and then forget her after she is passed out of the college. But things were different now, she was pregnant and wanted him to come meet her parents, divorce his wife and marry her. Neeraj knew that this was not at all possible. If the word on their relation and her pregnancy got out, it would ruin his life, his marriage, his career. Nikita’s father was a well known brute, an influential man who was well capable of destroying Neeraj’s life completely, or worse, killing him.

It took him weeks to get her to agree on abortion. What finally worked was again the same thing that worked when he wanted to get her in bed. He again spoke of marriage, again made promises that he did not intend to keep. He told her that if his father found out of pregnancy, he would never agree on their marriage.

“What kind of man would want to marry his daughter to someone who is already married and had gotten his daughter pregnant?” He told her.

He threatened her that if she did not abort the child, they may have to part ways. She may have to let Neeraj go and marry someone else. And when he mentioned that because of the pregnancy, her father may get Neeraj killed, she finally broke and agreed on aborting the baby. But by then, it was too late. Abortion was no longer an option. She was past that stage where they could have aborted the baby. His only hope were the pills that one of his Doctor friends had given him but when even the pills failed, he did not know what else to do.

Another few weeks later, Nikita’s pregnancy started to show on her body. Her belly started to swell slightly. It was not noticeable for someone who didn’t know that she was pregnant but Neeraj knew what was causing the change. People were not noticing it yet but he knew that it won’t last. Pretty soon, if he didn’t do anything, the entire world would see that she is with child.

“We do not have much time” Nikita said to Neeraj, “Get your divorce proceedings started so we can tell people that we intend to marry. We won’t be able to hide my pregnancy for any longer”

“If you had listened to me 2 months ago, we wouldn’t be going through with this” He replied. He was angry with her, furious, for putting him through all this.

“Either you do something or I will” She replied in an equally bitter tone.

“What do you mean?”

“I do not know but if you are just going to sit and wait, then I will have to take things in my own hand” She was adamant and for the first time, Neeraj saw her as dangerous.

But what could he do? How could he get this nightmare over? He thought over it again and again but could not figure a way out. There was no one he could tell or discuss his situation with. Whatever needed to be done had to be done by him and him only.

“It wasn’t really my fault” He looked in the mirror and told himself one day, “She came to me, slept with me out of her own will. I did not force her for anything. I did not take the first step of getting involved, she did. It was her who didn’t listen when I asked her to abort the child. It is all her fault and me and my family arent going to pay for her mistakes. And why should we, it was all her mess so she should be the one paying for it. I am not going to let this ruin my family”

He couldn’t even recognize himself in the mirror that day. A year ago, he was a respectable man for the society and more than that, in his own eyes. But now he has changed so much. He cheated on his wife, cheated with his profession, cheated on himself, got one of his students pregnant and now he was thinking of murder.

He kept his plan very simple. As a matter of fact, it was Nikita who gave him the idea of how he was going to commit the act. She said she would take things in her own hands and do something, so let it be. Neeraj decided that he would bring her to the point where she would be desperate enough to take that step. He knew she loved him enough to believe anything that he would say. So all that he had to do now was to get her to believe that the only way out for both of them was to kill themselves, commit suicide together, just like it happens in the movies. The only difference would be that only Nikita would consume the poison and Neeraj wouldn’t.

Once he had made up his mind on killing Nikita, there were only three things left to do. One was to arrange poison, which being a chemistry professor was not really a big deal for him. He had several chemicals available at the lab that he knew would kill a person if consumed. Second thing to do was to get Nikita agree on the fact that suicide was the only available option for them. Third was to get her to write a suicide note.

He had also considered the fact that she may not agree on committing suicide. Saying something and doing it us entirely different. She may back out when the time to consume the poison comes. If that happened, he would have to figure a way out of feeding her the poison without her knowledge and then use the suicide note to fake the murder as suicide.

But he was wrong, yet again.

When he reached home that evening, it was as if the time froze in that moment. It was a late winter evening and it was already dark outside. Parked right in front of his porch was Nikita’s car.

All his plans, all his thoughts, his entire world had come crashing down in a minute. He knew what Nikita’s car in front of his house meant. She was in there, talking to his wife, telling her everything and probably even yelling at her.

He just sat there in his car for what seemed like an eternity, unable to decide what to do. He wanted to run away from all of this, run away from Nikita, from Neha and from his present life. But he knew that it was not possible. Whatever comes now, he would have to face it.

He finally got out of his car and walked towards his house, his head hung down in guilt, like a criminal. The door was not locked and he pushed it open.

There was no movement in the house, no noise as he had hoped. Something didn’t seem right. He took another step into his drawing room and what he saw next was something that took him a moment to believe.

Right in the center of the room was Neha’s body, in a pool of her own blood. Laying a few steps away was his dead daughter, blood flowing from her head. In a corner of the room was Nikita, sitting drenched in blood and looking at Neeraj.

“I told you I would do something if you didn’t. I told you I would take things in my hand. Everything is fine now, she is gone. You do not have to worry about her anymore; we can now get married without worrying about divorce or anything else”