“My name is Natasha. Can I look at it?” she cut in with a sweet smile.
“Yes, why not? Do come in!”
Satyaki took her to the basement and showed her around.
“When can I start renting it?”
“Right now if you want! I live upstairs. Hope you will not have any problems living with a single
male. The entrance is entirely separate though…”
Natasha burst into peals of delightful laughter, “Hope you don’t mind sharing your living space
with a single white female!” was all she said!
Satyaki couldn’t believe his luck, “Why should I mind? I will just be happy to find a tenant!”
Natasha signed on the lease prepared by Satyaki after paying rent for two months in advance.
“I work nights so the chances of my seeing you will be slim as you will be at work during the
day. I will bring my stuff in tomorrow.”
“Do you need any help?”
“Don’t worry about that, a couple of my friends have promised to help. Alright then, good
night!”
“Good night!”
(2)
The first couple of months Satyaki hardly ever saw the fire bird. He was a little busy at work on
account of the closing of the fiscal year. By the time he got home at around 7:30 pm Natasha
would be gone. The name fire bird was coined by his friend Ambar.
Two days after Natasha had rented the basement from him Satyaki was describing her to his
friends at Kaushik’s birthday party. He had already downed a couple of beers when he said,
“Aishwarya, Katrina, Sunny Leone are all pale before her. The flaming red hair and those
incredible green eyes! They really jolt you man! She looks like an exotic bird!”
Dev said, “Guru, it seems like you are done for!”
“Don’t be silly! That kind of girl is hardly likely to pay me any attention! She is a couple of
inches taller than I am, at least in her heels she is. I guess only the likes of Tom Cruise and
Leonardo DeCaprio will look good by her side!”
Ambar had laughed at that and said, “Anyway Satyakida I’ve got to see that tenant of yours! It
takes an immense amount of luck to get a tenant like your fire bird!”
His friends had said a lot of things that night both G-rated and R-rated. Satyaki didn’t remember
most of it but the name firebird had stuck!
It took about three months for Satyaki to figure out Natasha’s profession, and once he did he felt
like a colossal fool. A beautiful girl like that doing night duty, what else could the job be other
than the oldest profession on earth? The pressure at work had gone down a bit so Satyaki was
able to come home a little early. Natasha usually went out at around 6:30 or 7 pm. Almost every
day there was a different car at the gate to pick her up. They were not cheap cars either. He had
spotted BMWs, Mercedes and Lexuses. Natasha would wear beautiful dresses (he never saw her
wearing the same dress twice!) and go with the owner of the car laughing. Her perfume would
linger in the air log after she was gone. It wasn’t really hard to guess her profession. He had
rented his basement unit to a girl like that! Thanks God he hadn’t said anything to his parents
about her. Lord knows why he had kept Natasha’s existence a secret from them, may be because
she was a female, a beautiful and single one at that!
Then one evening Satyaki was at home chopping vegetables for his dinner when there was a
knock on the door. He opened the door and found Natasha standing there. Her hair was in riotous