It was a love story that rivalled the epics. Mark Antony and Cleopatra, Anne Boleyn and Henry the Eighth, or John and Yoko. They paled in comparison. His was a bond that would only be severed in death, of that Sidharth was certain.
They had met, as lovers so often do, as victims of circumstance. A sudden cloudburst on a dreary summer night, a boy seeking shelter, a friend’s home nearby, warm and welcoming. And in that way, Sidharth found himself at a classmate's party. In a darkened room off of the main salon, he found her. He was hesitant, but bolstered by the urgings of those around him, they were introduced. Sidharth, a bright young business major, and she, a sultry and seductive vixen who could show him a world well beyond his tender experience.
They began with caution, like a delicate kiss, a tentative embrace. Yet quickly the occasional meetings, filled with all the exhilaration and intoxication of an illicit tryst, turned to infatuation. Their impromptu rendezvous became scheduled encounters that slated his burning desire, his longing. His obsession had taken root, and within weeks, Sidharth could no longer bear a moment without her.
His friends took notice and issued warnings. She’s beneath you; she’s toxic; the whole affair is unhealthy. But with eyes hued in shades of love, Sidharth did not see. With ears attuned only to the orgasmic rush of their coupling, he did not hear. His mind was fevered and could not reason. She consumed all his waking thoughts.
Her demands on his time and money became taxing. He decided that education could wait. Sidharth gained far more from her attention than he did from the ponderous tasks issued by his professors. Yes, she was costly, but all the most precious things in life were. Sacrifices were happily made.
A desperate cry came from his parents upon his expulsion from college. They called him home. He did not go. He could not leave her. Sidharth exhausted his welcome on friends' couches or in their spare rooms and eventually found himself under a ramshackle roof in the slums. The tin shack served their purposes well enough. There on the dirt floor in her warm embrace, his lover did not judge. She didn’t care that he hadn’t brushed his teeth, or bathed, or had worn the same clothes for weeks on end. Nor did his lover enquire about the obscene acts he had performed in the public toilet at the local rail station. Acts that secured the funds to keep her and his obsession satiated.
Huddled in the flickering candlelight, in the cold, in the damp, Sidharth was not afraid. Once again, he embraced his paramour and slid the fringed needle into his vein. Her feverous adore flooded each fibre of his body instantly, transforming him into the man only she could bring to life. Smack, junk, horse, skag, a rose by any other name. To Sidharth, she was China-white and would forever be his soulmate.