Adultery Weekday Wife

[Sherlocked]

The silence of the third-floor bedroom was heavy, pressing against Shweta’s chest like a physical weight. She lay on her side, her fingers tracing the cold, crisp cotton of the pillow beside her—the pillow that remained undented and empty five nights a week.


Her mind, seeking an escape from the hollow quiet, drifted back to the cacophony of shenai and the smell of jasmine from a year ago. The day she married Ani. She remembered the weight of the red Banarasi saree and the heat of the ceremonial fire, but mostly, she remembered the naive certainty that her life was finally beginning. She had waited so long for him.


But the fairy tale had stalled the moment the rituals ended. There had been no honeymoon suite in the misty hills of Darjeeling, no walks along the beaches of Puri. Ani simply couldn't afford it. The reality of his life—and by extension, hers—was etched in the ledger of family duty. When his father passed away, Ani’s dreams of a degree had evaporated, replaced by the harsh necessity of the contract job at the steel plant. He had stepped up, sacrificing his youth to put food on the table for his mother and the extended family.


Shweta’s parents had been furious when she insisted on marrying him. "He’s a contract worker, Shweta," her father had argued, his voice trembling with worry. "The pay is low. There is no security. You will struggle."


But Shweta, stubborn and blinded by high college romance, had fought them. At the time, she had romanticized his struggle. She had admired the way he shouldered the burden, the way his hands were rough with work but gentle with her. She had loved his sacrifice. She thought it made him noble.


Now, staring at the spectral patterns the moonlight cast through the window grilles onto the floor, the nobility felt distant. It had been a year, and they still hadn't gone anywhere. Not even a day trip. The savings were meager, always earmarked for house repairs or family emergencies.


Worse than the lack of travel was the lack of *him*. Durgapur wasn't far, but the shift timings and the cost of daily travel meant he had to live at the plant site. He belonged to the company from Monday to Saturday, leaving her to haunt this large, old house like a ghost. She was a wife only on the weekends; for the rest of the week, she was just a caretaker of his memory.


A treacherous thought bloomed in the darkness, unbidden and sharp. *Did I make a mistake?*


The question hung in the air, chilling her more than the night breeze. Was this it? Was her life destined to be a series of lonely nights and counted coins, waiting for a man who was too exhausted to love her when he finally did come home?


Immediate, hot guilt flooded her veins, washing away the self-pity. She squeezed her eyes shut, her hand gripping the bedsheet tight. *How can you be so selfish?* she chided herself venomously. Ani was out there right now, likely sleeping on a thin mattress in a crowded worker’s dormitory, eating tasteless mess food, breaking his back in the heat of the furnace—all to provide for her. He was bending over backwards to ensure she had this roof, this food, this life. He did it all for her, and here she was, resenting him for his hard work.


She buried her face in the pillow that smelled faintly of detergent and nothing else. She tried to focus on his face, on the tired smile he gave her when he walked through the door on Saturday evenings. The mental image blurred as exhaustion finally began to pull her under. With the moonlight watching over her like a silent judge, Shweta drifted into a restless, solitary sleep.


—


Two hundred and fifty kilometers away, the air tasted of sulfur and iron rather than jasmine.


The shift whistle had blown twenty minutes ago, signaling the end of another grueling evening rotation at the Durgapur Steel Plant, but the heat of the blast furnace still seemed to radiate from Ani’s skin. He wiped a layer of grime from his forehead with the back of a wrist that ached deep into the bone. His uniform, stiff with dried sweat and industrial dust, clung uncomfortably to his frame as he trudged toward the company cafeteria.


It was a cavernous, fluorescent-lit hall that smelled perpetually of stale oil and damp mops. Ani joined the line of weary men, taking a dented metal tray that was slapped with the night’s offering: two stiff rotis and a ladle of watery, indeterminate vegetable stew.


He found a spot at a long, chipped table and sat down, staring at the food with a lack of appetite that had become alarming lately. It was the same *sabji* as yesterday, and the day before. He tore off a piece of the roti, dipping it into the tepid gravy, but as he chewed, the flavor was metallic and bland.


His mind drifted inevitably to the kitchen back home. He thought of the way his mother’s dal was always tempered with just the right amount of cumin, and how Shweta... Shweta had a magic in her hands. Even a simple potato fry made by her tasted like a feast. She cooked with a tenderness that this industrial kitchen couldn't comprehend.


Ani swallowed with difficulty. The food here sat heavy in his stomach, a leaden weight that offered little nourishment. He pushed the tray away, leaving half the meal unfinished. He knew he was losing weight; his work pants required a tighter notch on the belt these days, and the constant physical labor combined with this poor diet was draining his vitality. He felt hollowed out, his energy reserves perpetually flashing red.


Leaving the mess hall, he walked through the darkness toward the worker’s dormitory. The night air was thick, carrying the distant, rhythmic clanging of the plant that never truly slept.


The dorm room was a cramped, barrack-style hall lined with rows of bunk beds. It smelled of exhausted men—of cheap soap, old sweat, and damp towels drying on railings. Ani navigated the narrow aisle to his designated bunk. He sat on the edge, the thin mattress barely cushioning him from the metal frame beneath.


He pulled his phone from his pocket, the screen glowing harsh in the dim room. His thumb hovered over Shweta’s name. He wanted to hear her voice. He wanted to tell her he missed her, that he was doing this for them, that he was sorry he wasn't there.


But the digital clock read past midnight. She would be asleep by now.


He couldn't bring himself to wake her. She deserved her rest, free from the intrusion of his exhaustion. With a heavy sigh, he placed the phone on the concrete floor beside his shoes. He didn't even have the energy to change out of his work clothes. He simply swung his legs up and collapsed back onto the hard, lumpy pillow.


There was no tossing or turning, no time for pining or reflection. His body simply shut down. Within seconds, Ani’s consciousness was extinguished by sheer fatigue, and he began to snore, a deep, rhythmic sound that joined the chorus of fifty other men sleeping away their lives in the dark.


—-------


Back in the sprawling ancestral home, separated from Shweta’s lonely vigil by merely twenty feet of hallway and a teak door, Sumu lay awake in a world entirely different from the one his cousin inhabited.


The room was bathed in the crisp, high-definition glow of a fifty-inch OLED screen mounted flush against the wall. The latest episode of *The Family Man* played out in vibrant contrast, the dialogue crisp and immersive thanks to the 5.1 surround sound system he had meticulously installed. Sumu shifted against the plush, memory-foam headboard, the air conditioner humming a soft, cool lullaby that kept the humid Bengal night at bay.


This was the sanctuary of a man who had played his cards right—and, he admitted to himself, had been dealt a better hand to begin with. As a senior software engineer for a Bangalore-based MNC, Sumu had the luxury of earning a metropolitan salary while living in a tier-three town. With remote work becoming the norm, his expenses were low, allowing him to indulge in the expensive hobbies of a tech geek.


He paused the video, the sudden silence of the room highlighting the hum of his computer rig in the corner. His gaze drifted to the ceiling fan, his mind wandering. He hadn’t grown up with a silver spoon either; the house was old, and money had been tight in their childhood. But luck had favored him. His father had managed to hold onto his job until retirement, shielding Sumu long enough for him to finish his engineering degree. He had landed a placement at twenty-one, fresh-faced and eager.


Now, with ten years of experience under his belt, he was comfortable. Secure.


A pang of familiar, dull guilt stirred in his chest as he thought of Ani. Fate had been cruel to his younger cousin. When their uncle died, Ani had been forced to step up, abandoning his education for that wretched contract job just to keep the fires burning at home. Even though Sumu had started earning before the tragedy, the timing had been such that he couldn't prevent Ani's fall.


He had tried, of course. On multiple occasions, Sumu had offered to cover the family’s expenses so Ani could go back to college or at least leave that deathtrap of a steel plant. But Ani was cut from the old cloth—proud, stubborn, and unwilling to take charity, even from his "Borda." He refused to be a burden.


Sumu respected him for it, but looking around his room filled with gadgets and comforts, the disparity left a sour taste in his mouth.


Yet, as he stared at the frozen image on the TV, a different emotion crept in, sitting side-by-side with the guilt. It was a quiet, green-eyed jealousy.


Sumu had everything a man could buy, but he had no one to share it with. His life was a series of successful code deployments and lonely dinners. Ani, for all his poverty and sweat-stained struggles, had something money couldn't purchase. He had Shweta. He had a woman who had turned her back on a comfortable future to stand beside him in the mud. She waited for him, cooked for him, and loved him despite the empty pockets.


Sumu sighed, rubbing his face with a well-manicured hand. He didn't covet his brother's wife—he saw Shweta as a sister, a sweet girl who deserved better—but he coveted the *devotion*. He wanted that unwavering presence in his own life. He wanted to be someone's entire world, the way Ani was to her.


"Everyone has their own cross to bear," he muttered to the empty room.


Remembering an early stand-up meeting with the US team scheduled for the morning, Sumu pointed the remote and killed the TV. The room plunged into darkness, save for the blinking LED of the router. He pulled the duvet up, the expensive fabric cool against his skin, and closed his eyes, forcing his mind to shut down.


Outside, the old house stood still under the watchful gaze of the moon. To any observer, it was a picture of domestic tranquility—three lives resting under one roof, bound by blood and marriage. But the silence was deceptive. The walls that separated the lonely wife, the exhausted husband, and the yearning cousin were thinner than they appeared. The equilibrium was fragile, held together by duty and denial, and in the quiet of the night, the unseen threads of fate were already beginning to tighten, preparing to pull them all into a tangled web they never saw coming.

[Projectmp]

Interesting plot

[LovePookie]

wow excellent start continue

[Sherlocked]

The ancestral home, a three-story structure of red brick and memories commissioned by their grandfather, stood as a testament to a bygone era. It was a vessel of shared bloodlines, partitioned by the subtle, invisible walls of daily routine. The layout of the house reflected the fractured yet intertwined lives of its inhabitants.


The first floor was the domain of the elders and the engine room of Sumu’s career. It housed three spacious rooms with high ceilings and heavy wooden shutters. In one, Sumu’s parents resided, their lives moving at the comfortable, rhythmic pace of retirement. Across the hallway lay the room belonging to Ani’s mother. Since the passing of Ani’s father, that space had taken on the permanent scent of sandalwood incense and silence. Grief had steered her toward the divine; she spent her days immersed in scriptures and rituals, seeking solace in a spirituality that the material world no longer offered her.


The third room on this floor served a starkly different purpose. It was Sumu’s sanctuary—his home office. While the rest of the floor breathed with the slow exhalations of age and prayer, this room hummed with the quiet whir of cooling fans and the cold, steady glow of multiple monitors. Sumu spent the majority of his waking hours here, insulated from the domestic drift outside his door, building a digital empire while the physical world decayed gently around him.


Life’s sustenance was prepared on the ground floor, where the cavernous kitchen and the adjoining dining hall were located. Despite the shared roof, the hearths were metaphorically separate. The two families maintained their own stoves, a tradition born of preference rather than animosity. Ani’s mother, in her widowhood and devotion, adhered to a strict vegetarian diet, her meals simple, unspiced, and austere.


In contrast, the air around Sumu’s mother—Shweta’s *Jethima*—was often thick with the rich aromas of mustard oil, fish, and spices. There was a warmth in the older woman that bridged the gap between the stoves. She never failed to set aside a bowl of something rich and savory for Ani when he was home, knowing his mother’s pot held only boiled vegetables. Since Shweta’s arrival into the family, that generosity had extended to her as well. A portion of *kasha mangsho* or a crisp piece of fried fish was always reserved for the young bride. This kindness had endeared Jethima to Shweta, providing a maternal comfort in a house that often felt too large and too quiet.


However, that warmth did not extend to a relationship with Sumu. Shweta and her husband’s cousin existed in the same orbit but rarely collided. Sumu was an introvert by nature, wrapping himself in an air of aloofness that Shweta initially found intimidating. He was the successful "Borda," the figure who lived in the glowing blue light of the first floor. Their interactions were minimal—brief, polite smiles exchanged when passing on the stairs, or an awkward, silent nod if they happened to enter the dining hall at the same time. He kept to himself and his work, a silent specter in the house, leaving Shweta to navigate her loneliness without his interference.


—-


The week leading up to their first wedding anniversary had been a fragile vessel of hope for Shweta, carrying her through the lonely silence of the large house. She had spent days meticulously planning the celebration, a small rebellion against the distance that defined their marriage. She wanted to celebrate the man who eroded his body daily just to keep a roof over hers.


They couldn't afford opulence, but Shweta had woven a tapestry of simple luxuries in her mind. She had planned to cook a feast for him—*chingri malai curry* and spicy mutton—dishes that were forbidden in his mother’s austere kitchen but which she knew he craved with a desperate hunger. She would cook a separate, pure vegetarian meal for her mother-in-law to keep the peace, but the night was meant to belong to Ani.


Earlier that week, their late-night phone calls had been filled with hushed excitement. They had agreed that Ani would take the day off. Shweta had imagined them escaping the suffocating humidity of the house for a few hours to visit the local single-screen cinema. It wasn’t one of those gleaming, air-conditioned multiplexes with reclining seats and overpriced popcorn that Sumu likely frequented. It was an older hall, smelling faintly of dust and phenol, but the darkness there was intimate, and the tickets were cheap. It was enough.


But the machinery of fate, much like the steel plant in Durgapur, had no regard for human sentiment.


The call came the night before the anniversary. Shweta had been sitting on the edge of their bed, wrapping a modest wristwatch she had saved months to buy, when the phone buzzed.


Ani’s voice was a ragged whisper, barely audible over the industrial hum in the background. He wasn't coming.


"It’s an emergency shutdown, Shona," he rasped, the exhaustion bleeding through the speaker. "The foreman said if I don't stay for the double shift and the maintenance work tomorrow, they might cut my contract next renewal."


The disappointment hit Shweta like a physical blow to the chest. She gripped the phone tighter, her eyes stinging. "But Ani... we planned this. It’s our first year."


"I know. I know," he pleaded, his voice cracking with helplessness. As a contract worker, he was disposable; he didn't have the luxury of saying no, nor the protection of a union that the permanent staff enjoyed. He had to accept the ad-hoc cruelty of the roster. "Listen, the good news is, because I’m doing this double shift, the supervisor said I can take an extra day off next week. I’ll come home Tuesday. We’ll have three whole days together. Please don’t be mad."


Shweta had nothing else to do other than accept it. To argue would only add to the burden on his shoulders, shoulders already stooped under the weight of duty. She hung up the phone, the silence of the room rushing back in to drown her. The wrapped gift on the bed suddenly looked foolish, a childish artifact of a dream that couldn't survive the harsh reality of their class.


She lay back on the pillows that still smelled faintly of him, though the scent was fading, staring at the ceiling fan cutting through the stagnant air. Her mind, seeking a target for her frustration, drifted downstairs to the first floor.


She thought of *Borda*.


Just yesterday, she had heard Sumu on the phone in the hallway, his voice casual and commanding. He had told his manager he was taking a "mental health day" simply because he hadn't slept well. He didn't ask; he informed. And he was still paid more in a month than Ani made in six.


A bitter, cold resentment pooled in her stomach—not at Ani, but at the unfairness of it all. Why was her husband enslaved to a furnace while his cousin could command his time with a few keystrokes? Why couldn't Ani take a single day for the woman who waited for him?


Downstairs, the house was quiet, but the wheels of change had begun to turn. Shweta felt a crack form in her resolve, a fissure born of loneliness and envy, unaware that it was the perfect opening for forbidden things to enter.


—-


Ani knew the trip home on Tuesday would be a walk across a tightrope. The delayed celebration hung over him like the heavy, soot-filled clouds above the steel plant. He had missed the actual date—the first milestone of their married life—and no amount of overtime pay could buy back that lost moment.


He arrived with the dust of Durgapur still clinging to his boots, clutching two bags. The first day back, surprisingly, had gone smoother than he feared. He had presented the red silk saree immediately. It wasn’t the heavy gold necklace he had dreamed of giving her when they were dating in high college—gold prices had soared beyond the reach of a contract laborer—but the silk was soft, the crimson deep and rich. Shweta had smiled, a genuine, albeit tired, smile, and dbangd it over her shoulder, asking how she looked.


"Like a queen," he had said, and he meant it.


They spent the day fulfilling the ghost of their anniversary plans. They went to the cinema, ate street food that made them both nostalgic for their college days, and for a few hours, the crushing weight of his absence seemed to lift.


But the night held a different weight.


After a dinner of spicy mutton curry—the meal she had promised him—they retreated to their room on the top floor. The air was heavy, the ceiling fan cutting through the humidity with a rhythmic *thwack-thwack*. Ani felt a stir of desire mixed with anxiety. He wanted to reclaim the intimacy the steel plant had stolen from him.


He reached into his bag and pulled out the second gift, wrapped in discreet brown paper. He had spent a significant portion of his saved allowance on it. It was a black bikini bra and panty set—lacy, minimal, and provocative. He had always loved how black contrasted against Shweta’s fair skin, though she usually wore simple, sensible cotton. This was his attempt to ignite something passionate, to make her feel desirable, to bridge the gap.


"I got you something else," Ani whispered, handing her the package. His heart hammered against his ribs. "Something for us."


Shweta sat on the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping under her weight. She unwrapped the paper slowly. When the scrap of black lace and silk fell into her hands, she didn't smile. She held it up, the tiny garment looking almost ridiculous against the backdrop of their modest, peeling walls.


She looked at the price tag he had forgotten to remove. Her eyes widened.


"Ani," she said, her voice dangerously quiet. "How much was this?"


"It doesn't matter," he said, moving to sit beside her, reaching for her waist. "I just wanted to see you in it. You look so beautiful in black, and I thought—"


"Two thousand rupees?" Shweta’s voice cracked, sharp enough to halt his hand. She dropped the underwear onto the bed as if it were burning coal. "You spent two thousand rupees on... on *this*?"


Ani blinked, confused by the sudden shift in her demeanor. "It’s a gift, Shona. To make up for missing the day. I wanted to make tonight special."


"Special?" Shweta stood up, the frustration that had been simmering all week—all year—finally boiling over. "You think this makes it special? Ani, do you know what I could have done with two thousand rupees?"


"It's just money, I earned it—"


"We don't have a TV in this room!" she shouted, then clamped a hand over her mouth, glancing fearfully at the door, lowering her voice to a harsh hiss. "I stare at these four walls all day. All day, Ani! I finish cooking, I help Jethima, and then I come here and stare at the wall. I asked you for a small TV months ago. You said we had to save. But you have money for this... this useless piece of string?"


"It's not useless," Ani said, his own temper flaring defensively. He stood up to face her. "I bought it because I desire my wife. Is that a crime? I wanted us to have some romance. I’m killing myself in that heat for twelve hours a day to put money in your hand, can’t I spend a little on something I like?"


"But you aren't here!" Shweta’s eyes filled with tears, her face flushing red. "That’s the point! You buy me sexy underwear, but where are you? You’re in Durgapur! Who am I supposed to wear this for? The mirror?"


"I'm here now," Ani pleaded, stepping closer, but she backed away.


"You're here now because your supervisor *let* you come," she spat out. "You missed our anniversary. Our first one. Do you know how humiliating it was? Jethima made payesh, Ma did a puja, and I sat there alone like a widow while everyone looked at me with pity."


"I didn't have a choice!" Ani said, his voice straining. "If I don't do the shifts, they’ll cut the contract. Then what will we eat? Air?"


"Why do you never have any choice? Look at Borda, why couldn't you do something like him, we would have so much time together"


Ani's voice now barely a whisper, "I don't have the same education like him Shweta. You know me from college life, you should know"


"I don't want to know anything" She picked up the black lace bra and threw it at his chest. It fluttered harmlessly to the floor between them.


"I don't want your expensive underwear," she sobbed, collapsing back onto the bed, burying her face in her hands. "I just wanted my husband. I just wanted you to be here when you were supposed to be."


Ani stood there, the silence of the room rushing back in, heavy and suffocating. The red saree lay neatly folded on the chair, and the black lace lay crumpled on the floor—two symbols of his failure. He looked at his wife, her shoulders heaving with sobs, and felt a profound, paralyzing helplessness. He couldn't change his job. He couldn't change his education. He couldn't be Sumu.


He bent down and quietly picked up the underwear, stuffing it back into his bag. He turned off the light, plunging the room into darkness.


He lay down on the bed, leaving a wide gap between them. Shweta was still crying softly into her pillow. Ani wanted to reach out, to touch her back, to apologize for being a failure, but his hand felt too heavy to lift. He turned his back to her, staring into the dark, listening to the whir of the fan and the sound of his wife weeping for a life he couldn't give her.

[LovePookie]

soo emotional ;)

[Sherlocked]

The morning sun filtered through the louvers of the old house, casting striped shadows across the hallway, but the air inside remained heavy with the residue of the previous night’s storm. Ani moved quietly, his body aching not just from the grueling shifts at the steel plant, but from the emotional bruising of Shweta’s tears. He needed to fix this. He couldn't buy a television—not yet—but he could perhaps borrow a solution.


He climbed the stairs to the first floor, pausing outside the door of the home office. Inside, the click-clack of a keyboard was a rhythmic, confident sound. He knocked gently and pushed the door open.


Sumu was seated behind a sleek, wide monitor, the glow of the screen illuminating his face. The room was cool, conditioned against the humid Bengal heat, a stark contrast to the stifling air of the worker's dormitory Ani was used to.


"Ani? Come in," Sumu said, swiveling his chair around. He looked fresh, well-rested, wearing a casual t-shirt that dbangd over his broad shoulders. "I didn't think you'd be up this early. How’s the plant?"


"It's... it's going," Ani managed a tight smile, stepping into the cool room. "Double shifts mostly. The furnace heat is something else this time of year."


"I can imagine," Sumu nodded, leaning back. " glad you’re back for a few days, though. Mom was happy to see you eating properly last night."


They exchanged pleasantries for a few minutes—the cost of raw materials, the local politics of the union—but Ani’s eyes kept darting to the floor. Finally, he cleared his throat.


"Borda, actually... I wanted to ask you something."


Sumu stopped tapping his pen against the desk. "Go on."


"It’s about Shweta," Ani began, his voice lowering. He carefully navigated around the humiliation of the bikini and the screaming match. "We... we had a bit of a disagreement yesterday. She’s struggling, Borda. Being alone in that room all day while I’m gone, and you know she doesn't like to intrude on Jethima constantly. She’s bored out of her mind."


Sumu listened, his expression unreadable but attentive.


"I can't afford a TV for our room right now," Ani admitted, the shame burning his ears. "I was wondering... would you mind if she watched the TV in your room during the day? Just to pass the time?"


Sumu raised an eyebrow, surprised. "Ani, I told you this months ago. My room sits empty from nine in the morning until I log off at night. The TV, the AC—it’s all just sitting there."


"I know," Ani said quickly. "I just didn't want to disturb your privacy before. But... she’s really unhappy. I think it would help."


Sumu looked at his cousin. He saw the fatigue etched around Ani's eyes, the desperation to please a wife he could barely afford to keep happy. He realized the fight must have been severe for Ani to swallow his pride like this.


"Of course," Sumu said, his voice softening. "She doesn't need to ask. Tell her she can use the room whenever she wants. It’s family, Ani. Stop acting like a stranger."


"Thank you, Borda," Ani exhaled, a weight lifting off his chest.


***


The afternoon light had turned golden and syrupy by the time Ani returned to their bedroom on the top floor. The silence between them had softened from icy tension to a fragile, melancholy quiet. Shweta was lying on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, her eyes red-rimmed.


She was already regretting the venom in her words from the night before. Seeing him standing there, looking so worn out, guilt washed over her. He was killing himself for that contract, and she had thrown his gift in his face.


Ani climbed onto the bed beside her. It was the old *palanka* bed, a massive heirloom that dominated the room. Four thick, square pillars rose nearly to the ceiling, culminating in a simple, open canopy frame that looked ready to dbang the silk or linen of a bygone era. Capping the footboard and headboard posts were large, smooth, dark wooden spheres—finials that resembled highly polished obsidian, cool to the touch.


The headboard and footboard were the most elaborate features. They were tall and intricate, composed of geometric latticework and angular curves. The dominant decorative motif was a series of fanned or sunburst carvings, cut directly into the dark wood, making the corners look like they were perpetually blooming.


Shweta shifted, resting her head on Ani’s chest. Through his thin cotton vest, she could feel the ridges of his ribs.


"You’ve gotten so thin," she whispered, her fingers tracing the hollow of his collarbone. "You need to eat more, Ani. The cafeteria food is poison."


"I eat," he lied softly, stroking her hair. "Don't worry about me."


"I shouldn't have shouted," she murmured, her eyes moistening again. "I know you try. I’m just... I feel like I’m going crazy in this room sometimes."


"I know," Ani kissed the top of her head. "I fixed it. I spoke to Borda."


Shweta stiffened slightly. "You told him?"


"Not everything," Ani assured her. "Just that you’re bored. He said you can use the TV in his room whenever you want. He was actually surprised we hadn't done it sooner."


Shweta remained silent. Sumu’s room was on the floor below. It was a space she rarely entered—large, modern, smelling faintly of expensive cologne and air conditioning. It felt like a different world compared to their dusty, antique-filled quarters.


"He said his room is empty all day," Ani continued, mistaking her silence for hesitation. "He wants you to use it. It’s better than staring at these walls, isn't it?"


"I suppose," Shweta said slowly. "If he really doesn't mind."


"He doesn't. Borda hasn't changed, you know," Ani said, a note of admiration creeping into his voice. "Despite all that money and the big job, he’s still humble. He still cares about us."


They lay there until the sun dipped below the horizon, the room darkening around them. They talked in hushed tones, trying to bridge the gap the argument had created. Yet, strangely, the conversation kept circling back to Sumu—his generosity, his success, and now, the access to his private sanctuary. Without realizing it, Ani was painting a picture of a savior, slowly pushing the door open to a life Shweta had only observed from a distance.


—---


The first time Shweta turned the handle of Sumu’s door, her hand trembled. It was a Tuesday afternoon, the house silent save for the distant cawing of crows and the rhythmic thrum of the ceiling fan in the hallway. Ani had already left for Durgapur, leaving behind the heavy silence that usually suffocated her.


She pushed the door open tentatively, half-expecting Sumu to be there despite what Ani had said, or perhaps expecting the room itself to reject her presence. The air smelled distinctly of him—a crisp blend of citrusy aftershave and the clean, static scent of electronics.


She didn't stay long that first day. She sat on the edge of the plush, grey sofa, clutching the remote like a foreign object, watching twenty minutes of a news channel with the volume turned low before guilt chased her back to the heat and the *palanka* of her own room.


But the seed of comfort had been sown.


By Thursday, the hesitation had evaporated, replaced by a craving for the escape the room offered. The moment her household chores were done, Shweta would retreat into Sumu's room. These afternoons, her own room seldom held her. She knew Sumu remained engrossed in his first-floor office, unlikely to venture upstairs at this hour. She learned to navigate the complex interface of the smart TV, exploring worlds she had only heard about. She binged on web series where people lived fast, glamorous lives in Mumbai and Delhi, and watched high-definition movies where the colors were so vivid they made her own life seem grey in comparison.


The room became her sanctuary. She would curl up on the sofa, pulling one of Sumu’s throw cushions into her lap, burying her face in it during the suspenseful moments. The surround sound system was a revelation; the bass thumped in her chest, drowning out the loneliness that usually echoed in her ears.


Yet, in the quiet moments between episodes, a pang of longing would strike her. She wished Ani were there. She imagined him sitting beside her, his arm around her shoulder, laughing at the comedy scenes. But the fantasy always crumbled quickly. She knew her husband. Ani was a man carved from pride as much as flesh. He would never relax here. He would sit stiffly, conscious of every rupee that bought this comfort, feeling like a charity case in his own cousin's home. He would rather sweat in dignity upstairs than cool off in borrowed luxury.


Down the hall, in his home office, Sumu would often pause his typing. Through the heavy teak door, he could hear the muffled sounds of dialogue or the swelling score of a film.


A small, satisfied smile would play on his lips. He liked knowing the house wasn't entirely dead during the day. He liked the idea that he was providing for them, filling the gaps that Ani, for all his hard work, could not. It made him feel benevolent, a responsible elder brother figure ensuring the happiness of the clan.


He would lean back in his ergonomic chair, stretching his arms, listening to the faint laughter of his sister-in-law drifting from his bedroom. He felt good about himself, glad that such a small gesture could bring so much relief. He had no idea that by opening his door, he had done far more than offer a distraction. He remained blissfully unaware of the dangerous intimacy growing in the dark, cool air of his room, or that his "helping out" was merely the prelude to a debt that would be paid in ways neither of them could yet imagine.

[Sherlocked]

The day began innocently enough, masked by the oppressive, stifling blanket of a typical Bengal summer morning. The heat rose early, shimmering off the asphalt and baking the old walls of the house, but for Shweta, the temperature outside was nothing compared to the simmering frustration within.


Ani hadn't come home last weekend. It had been two weeks now—fourteen long, lonely nights—and the strain had finally snapped the fragile patience she usually maintained. The argument over the phone last night had been ugly, filled with her accusations of neglect and his exhausted, defensive mumbles. She had hung up on him, leaving the silence to ring louder than his apologies.


Even Ani’s mother had noticed the storm clouds on Shweta’s face during breakfast. The older woman, sensing the marital discord, had wisely chosen to retreat to her scriptures, leaving Shweta to her brooding. Shweta performed her household duties with mechanical efficiency, scrubbing and sweeping as if the physical exertion could scour away her anger. By the time lunch was over and the house fell into its afternoon slumber, she was drenched in perspiration and mentally drained.


She retreated to the second floor, to the sanctuary of Sumu’s room.


Whatever hesitation she had once felt about entering her brother-in-law’s private space had long since evaporated. It didn't even occur to her anymore that this was not her husband’s room; in the lonely stretch of the weekdays, she had claimed it as her temporary kingdom. She closed the heavy wooden door, shutting out the heat and the dust of the rest of the house, and switched on the air conditioner. The machine hummed to life, a low, comforting drone that promised relief.


She turned on the large television, navigating to a web series she had been following, but the images blurred before her eyes. The characters' voices seemed distant, irrelevant compared to the replay of the argument in her head. *Why does he work so hard if we can never enjoy it?* she thought bitterly. *Why am I the only one waiting?*


She lay back on the plush grey sofa, but it felt too upright, too rigid for her exhaustion. On impulse, she moved to Sumu’s large bed. The mattress was firm, the sheets smelling faintly of fabric softener and the cool, clean scent of the room. She curled up, intending only to rest her eyes for a moment. But the contrast was too potent—the brutal humidity she had battled all morning versus this artificial winter. The cool air caressed her sweat-dampened skin, pulling her eyelids down with irresistible weight. She clicked the remote, silencing the TV, and let the darkness take her.


***


Downstairs, in the converted home office, Sumu was frowning at his laptop screen. A notification for an upcoming conference call blinked at him, and he patted his desk, looking for his noise-canceling headset. It wasn't there.


He rubbed his temples, remembering. *Last night.* He had taken the laptop upstairs to his bedroom for a late-night sync with the US team and had left the headset on the bedside table.


He pushed his chair back, a flicker of hesitation crossing his face. It was 3:00 PM. Usually, this was the time Shweta occupied his room to watch her shows. They had an unspoken agreement: the room was hers during the day, his at night. He respected that boundary, wary of the awkwardness of being alone in a bedroom with his cousin's wife.


He walked out into the corridor and paused at the foot of the stairs, straining his ears. The house was silent, save for the distant, mournful call of a koel bird and the rhythmic snoring of his father from the ground floor bedroom. No sound drifted down from the first floor. No dialogue from the TV, no movement.


*She must have skipped it today,* he thought, feeling a wave of relief. *Maybe she’s napping in her own room.*


Confident that the coast was clear, he climbed the stairs. He reached for the handle of his bedroom door and pushed it open, stepping from the sweltering hallway into the refrigerated air of his room.


He froze.


Shweta was there. But she wasn't watching TV.


She was fast asleep in the center of his bed, a vision of disarray that made the breath catch in his throat. She was lying on her back, one arm thrown carelessly over her head, her body completely surrendered to the deep sleep of the exhausted.


Sumu stood paralyzed in the doorway, caught between the urge to flee and a sudden, magnetic pull to look.


The cotton saree she wore—a simple yellow one printed with small flowers—had ridden up her legs as she tossed in her sleep, bunching around her knees. It exposed the smooth, pale expanse of her calves and the soft curve of her thighs, skin that was usually hidden beneath layers of modesty. But it was her upper body that made his ears burn hot red.


The pallu of her saree had slipped entirely off her shoulder, pooling uselessly on the mattress beside her. Her blouse, a tight-fitting garment that strained against her figure, was on full display. Without the saree to cover her, the rise and fall of her chest with each deep breath was mesmerizing. He could see the deep indentation of her navel on her flat, exposed midriff, the curve of her waist looking impossibly soft against the grey sheets.


And then he saw the hook.


Perhaps due to the heat earlier in the day, or simply for comfort, the top hook of her blouse was undone. It wasn't much, but it was enough to widen the neckline, offering a glimpse of the deep, shadowy cleavage that Ani usually claimed as his own.


Sumu felt a strange, heavy thud in his chest. He had never looked at Shweta like this. To him, she had always been *Boudi*—a family member, a fixture in the house, Ani’s responsibility. He knew she was pretty, objectively speaking, but he had never allowed himself to really *see* her.


Now, stripped of her social armor, lying vulnerable in his bed, surrounded by his scent, she didn't look like a sister-in-law. She looked like a woman. A desirable, incredibly sensual woman.


Something stirred low in his belly, a sharp spike of arousal that brought an immediate flush of guilt. He shouldn't be seeing this. This was forbidden. This was Ani’s wife.


And yet, he didn't move. He stood there for several long seconds, his eyes tracing the line of her neck, the sweat that had dried on her collarbone, the way her lips were slightly parted. The silence of the room felt heavy, charged with a static that had nothing to do with the electronics.


The notification sound from his phone in his pocket shattered the spell.


*The call.*


Sumu blinked, the reality of the situation crashing back in. If she woke up now and saw him staring, it would be catastrophic. He swallowed hard, forcing his eyes away from the curve of her hips.


Moving with the stealth of a thief, he tiptoed into the room. The air conditioning raised goosebumps on his arms, a stark contrast to the heat flushing his face. He reached the bedside table, his hand hovering inches from her sleeping form. She murmured something in her sleep, shifting her leg, and Sumu froze, his heart hammering against his ribs.


She didn't wake. She settled back into the mattress, her hand brushing against the spot where he usually slept.


Sumu grabbed the headphones. He backed away slowly, never taking his eyes off her, until he was across the threshold. He pulled the door shut with a soft click, his hand trembling slightly on the knob.


Standing in the hot corridor, he leaned back against the closed door, exhaling a breath he didn't realize he’d been holding. The image of her—disheveled, exposed, and asleep in his bed—was burned onto the back of his eyelids. He tried to shake it off, to compose himself for his meeting, but as he walked back downstairs, the feeling of the cool room and the sight of her warm skin lingered, unsettling and undeniably intoxicating.


—-


The light in the room had shifted, the bright, harsh glare of the afternoon softening into the heavy, amber hues of dusk. Shweta blinked open her eyes, momentarily disoriented by the grey ceiling and the unfamiliar hum of the air conditioner. Then, reality rushed back in.


She scrambled upright, her heart giving a frantic thud against her ribs. *Evening.* She had slept through the entire afternoon.


A wave of unease washed over her. Watching TV on the sofa was one thing; sleeping in his bed, burrowing into his sheets like a cat, was entirely another. It felt intimate in a way she hadn't intended, a transgression of the unspoken boundaries between them. Sumu would be finishing his work soon. He might come upstairs to freshen up.


She swung her legs off the mattress, her bare feet hitting the cold floor. She needed to erase herself from this room.


With frantic, trembling hands, she smoothed the wrinkles from the grey bedsheet. She punched the pillows back into their crisp, square shapes, aligning them perfectly against the headboard. She checked the floor for any stray hair, her breath coming in shallow, nervous puffs.


Before reaching for the door handle, she paused, turning back to survey the room under the glow of the overhead light she had just flickered on. It looked pristine. Cold. Masculine. Yet, something felt… off.


Her eyes swept the surfaces—the dresser, the TV console, the bedside table. It looked tidy, just as she had found it. But a nagging sensation tugged at the back of her mind, a feeling that the composition of the room had shifted slightly. She stared at the bedside table for a long moment. The lamp, the coaster, the digital clock. It all seemed fine.


*You’re just paranoid,* she told herself, shaking her head to dislodge the feeling. She switched off the light, plunging the room back into shadows, and slipped out, closing the heavy wooden door with a soft click.


Downstairs, the house was waking up from its siesta. The smell of burning coal and evening spices wafted from the kitchen. Shweta descended the stairs, composing her face into a mask of normalcy.


"Bouma, you're up?" Jethima called out from the kitchen. The older woman was busy straining tea into cups. "Your mother-in-law went to the Satsang Mandir for bhajans. She won't be back for an hour."


Shweta nodded, leaning against the doorframe, grateful for the distraction. "I... I had a headache, Jethima. I lay down for a bit."


"Good, good. The heat is terrible today," Jethima said kindly. She placed two Marie biscuits on a saucer. "Since you are here, can you take this to Sumu? I have to watch the milk so it doesn't boil over. He's in his office."


Shweta hesitated, her stomach tightening, but she nodded. "Yes, Jethima."


She took the cup and saucer, the china rattling slightly in her grip. She walked down the short hallway to the converted office room. The rhythmic clatter of a keyboard stopped as she knocked on the door.


"Come in," Sumu’s voice came through, deep and distracted.


Shweta pushed the door open. The office was cool, though not as frigid as his bedroom. Sumu was sitting behind his wide desk, the glow of the monitor illuminating his face. He looked up, a flicker of surprise widening his eyes when he saw her instead of his mother.


"Oh, Shweta," he said, shifting in his chair. "I thought Ma..."


"Ma went to the temple," Shweta said, her voice sounding thin to her own ears. "And Jethima is in the kitchen, so..."


She stepped forward to place the tea on his desk, but her movement faltered. Her eyes had locked onto his head.


He was wearing them. The large, black noise-canceling headphones. One ear cup was pushed slightly back so he could hear her, but they were unmistakably the same ones.


The realization hit her with the force of a physical blow, nearly causing her to drop the tea.


*They were on the bedside table.*


The image flashed in her mind with crystalline clarity: when she had first entered his room that afternoon, seeking the AC, the headphones had been resting on the small wooden table next to the bed. She was certain of it. She had almost knocked them over when she placed her phone down.


Now, they were here. On his ears.


The blood drained from her face, only to come rushing back in a torrential, burning tide of crimson.


If the headphones were here, that meant he had gone upstairs. He had entered the room.


He had entered the room while she was asleep.


A suffocating heat rose from her chest, choking her. She remembered how she had woken up—limbs sprawled, saree twisted. And then, with a jolt of pure horror, she remembered the blouse. She had unhooked the top clasp to let her skin breathe. The fabric would have gaped open with the way she had been lying on her back.


*Oh god.*


She stood frozen, the saucer trembling in her hand. He had been there. He had stood close enough to the bed to pick up the headphones from the table. He must have been inches away from her face. Inches away from her exposed chest.


"Shweta?" Sumu asked, frowning slightly. "Is everything okay?"


Shweta couldn't speak. The words died in her throat. She looked at him, searching his eyes for mockery, for judgment, for *knowledge*. But he just looked at her with a strange, intense guardedness.


She slammed the cup down on the coaster, tea sloshing over the rim. "I... I have to go," she stammered, breathless.


Without waiting for a response, she turned and fled the room, her saree pallu trailing behind her like a turbulent wake.


Sumu watched the empty doorway for a long time after she left. He didn't reach for the tea. He slowly slid the headphones off his ears and set them on the desk, his hand lingering on the padded leather.


He hadn't noticed her panic. He barely registered her words. His mind was too occupied with the struggle to keep his own composure. Every time he blinked, he saw it again—the curve of her waist, the rise and fall of her breath, the shadow between her breasts. The image had branded itself onto his retinas. He felt a heavy, guilty pulse in his veins that he couldn't suppress.

[Sherlocked]

That night, the air in the house was thick, charged with electricity that had nothing to do with the power grid.


Sumu lay in his large, modern bed, staring at the ceiling fan slicing through the shadows. He had changed the sheets, but it didn't matter. He could still smell her. The faint, sweet scent of sandalwood soap and the unique, warm musk of her skin lingered on the mattress, ghosting around him. He turned on his side, squeezing his eyes shut, but the flashback was relentless. He was a man possessed, fighting a battle between familial duty and a sudden, roaring desire that terrified him.


Few feet away in the same floor, in the heavy, antique *palanka* bed, Shweta lay curled in a tight ball, her eyes wide open in the darkness.


She felt sick with embarrassment. She was twenty feet away from him. The floorboards felt too thin. She kept replaying the timeline, calculating the angles. *He saw me. He definitely saw me.* The thought made her skin prickle. It wasn't just the shame of being seen disheveled; it was the intimacy of it. He had been in the room, watching her sleep, and she had been defenseless.


She shivered, the thought of him standing over her, silent and observing, made her heart race—not entirely out of fear, but out of a strange, forbidden thrill that she immediately tried to squash.


Two hundred and fifty kilometers away, in a cramped dormitory that smelled of sweat and steel, Ani lay on a lumpy mattress. He stared at his phone screen, willing it to light up. He had called twice. She hadn't picked up.


*She’s still angry,* he thought, a heavy stone of guilt settling in his gut. He rolled over, facing the peeling paint of the wall, hoping that by morning she would forgive him. He fell into a restless sleep, dreaming of a happy reunion, completely unaware that he was no longer the only man occupying his wife's thoughts.


Outside, the wind began to pick up. The leaves of the mango trees thrashed against the window panes, and the sky rumbled with a low, menacing growl. A *Kalbaishakhi*—the violent Nor'wester storm common in Bengal springs—was brewing. Dark clouds were gathering, ready to unleash a torrent that would mirror the chaos about to tear through the quiet, peaceful lives within the house.


—--


The storm had raged well into the early hours of the morning, the *Kalbaishakhi* lashing against the windowpanes with a fury that mirrored the turbulence in Shweta’s mind. She had lain awake for hours, listening to the wind howl and the thunder crack, her body rigid in the cold, antique bed. Every flash of lightning had illuminated the empty space beside her, a stark reminder of her solitude. But more haunting than the storm was the replay of the afternoon—the image of Sumu standing over her, the realization of her undone blouse, the suffocating mix of shame and thrill that had kept sleep at bay.


When she finally woke, the sun was already high, blazing with a vengeance that sought to erase any trace of the night’s rain. The bright, unforgiving light of the morning filtered through the slats of the windows, casting striped shadows across the floor.


Shweta sat up, rubbing her temples. In the clarity of the day, the anxieties of the night before felt almost foolish. *He probably didn't see anything,* she told herself, forcing a rational perspective. *He just grabbed his headphones and left. I’m making a mountain out of a molehill because I’m lonely and bored.* The shame that had burned her cheeks last night now felt like a silly, childish overreaction.


She reached for her phone on the bedside table. Three missed calls from Ani.


A pang of genuine guilt pierced through her. She had been so wrapped up in her own drama with Sumu that she had ignored her husband. Checking the time, she realized he wouldn’t have left for his shift yet.


She dialed his number, her heart doing a small, hopeful flutter when he picked up on the second ring.


"Shweta?" His voice was crackly, the connection poor, but the relief in his tone was unmistakable. "I was worried. You didn't pick up last night."


"I... I fell asleep early," she lied, the falsehood tasting like ash on her tongue. "The storm knocked out the signal for a bit too."


"I'm sorry about the other night," Ani rushed to say, cutting through the awkwardness. "I shouldn't have yelled. I know how hard it is for you there alone. I’m trying, Shweta. Really."


Hearing his voice—familiar, weary, and laced with that desperate affection—grounded her. It was an anchor to her reality, pulling her back from the precipice of her wandering thoughts.


"I know," she said softly, clutching the phone tighter. "I'm sorry too. I shouldn't have thrown the gift. It was... it was lovely. I was just frustrated."


"I'll be home this weekend," he promised, his voice brightening slightly. "The double shifts are done for now. I’ll bring some *mishti* from that shop you like near the station."


"Okay," she whispered. "Take care of yourself, Ani. Don't skip meals."


"I won't. You too. Love you."


"Love you."


She hung up and let out a long, shaky breath. The conversation had settled the erratic beating of her heart. This was her life. Ani was her husband. The incident with Sumu was just an awkward misunderstanding, nothing more.


Feeling lighter, Shweta went about her morning routine with renewed purpose. She showered, scrubbing her skin vigorously as if to wash away the lingering confusion of the previous day. She dressed in a fresh cotton saree, a simple sky-blue dbang that felt cool against her skin, and gathered her wet laundry in a plastic bucket.


The house had a flat, open terrace on the first floor, adjacent to the room Sumu used as his office. It was a sun-drenched space where the family usually dried their clothes or laid out pickles in jars.


Humming a low tune, Shweta stepped out onto the terrace. The heat hit her instantly, rising from the concrete floor that was already baking under the sun. The air smelled of wet cement and evaporating rain. She moved to the clotheslines strung across the far side, shaking out the wet pleats of her petticoat.


As she reached up to clip the fabric to the line, a movement in her peripheral vision caught her eye.


She turned her head and froze.


On the section of the terrace directly outside the glass doors of the home office, Sumu was working out.


He had evidently decided to take advantage of the morning sun. He wasn't wearing his usual polo shirt or the casual tees he wore around the house. He was dressed only in a pair of dark athletic shorts and a thin, white vest—a *sando-ganji*—that clung to his torso like a second skin.


Shweta’s hand, holding the plastic clip, remained suspended in mid-air.


He was doing push-ups, his body moving with a rhythmic, powerful cadence. Down, up. Down, up. With every descent, the muscles in his back and shoulders bunched and rippled beneath the thin fabric. His skin, usually pale from his indoor life, was flushed and glistening with a heavy sheen of sweat.


He paused, pushing himself up to a kneeling position to grab a pair of dumbbells resting on the floor. As he lifted them, curling his arms toward his chest, the veins in his forearms popped, thick and corded.


Shweta stared. She knew she should look away. She knew she should finish hanging her laundry and retreat into the house. But her feet felt welded to the hot concrete.


She had never seen a man look like this. Ani was strong, yes—he worked in a steel plant, after all—but his was a strength born of exhaustion, a lean, wiry toughness carved by hardship. Sumu looked different. He looked... sculpted. Powerful. There was a vitality to his movements, a surplus of energy that radiated from him.


A drop of sweat rolled down his temple, tracing the line of his jaw before dripping onto his collarbone. Shweta watched the droplet’s path, her mouth suddenly dry. She watched the way his chest heaved with controlled breaths, the way the damp vest became translucent, hinting at the definition of his abs underneath.


It was a trance, a suspension of time where the moral compass she had just reset with Ani’s phone call spun wildly out of control. She wasn't looking at him as a brother-in-law. She was looking at him as a specimen of masculinity that was utterly, devastatingly attractive.


Sumu, engrossed in the burn of his muscles and the loud music likely playing in his earbuds, remained completely oblivious. He finished his set, dropping the weights with a heavy clank that echoed on the roof. He stood up, stretching his arms high above his head, his shirt riding up to expose a strip of taut waist.


He wiped his face with the back of his hand, turned, and walked back into the air-conditioned sanctuary of his office, sliding the glass door shut behind him.


The spell broke.


Shweta blinked, the sudden absence of him leaving a jarring void in the bright sunlight. She looked down at her hand, still clutching the laundry clip so tightly her knuckles were white.


She was trembling. And she realized, with a flush that had nothing to do with the midday sun, that she was sweating profusely. Her own saree was sticking to her back, her breath coming in short, shallow puffs. She stood there for a long moment, staring at the empty space where he had been, the image of his glistening muscles burned into her mind, overlaying the memory of Ani’s tired voice from just an hour ago.

[Rocky@handsome]

Excellent!! Great Going!!
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

[Saj890]

Very nice

[Sherlocked]

The days that followed didn't wash away the memory; they baked it in, hardening the moment like clay under the relentless Bengal sun.


Two weeks bled into the calendar, dragging the household deeper into the furnace of May. The heat became a physical weight, pressing down on the old house, stifling conversations and amplifying the silence. Outwardly, the routine remained the same. Ani came home for the weekends, his eyes rimmed with fatigue, grateful for Shweta’s cooking and the comfort of his own bed. Shweta played the part of the dutiful wife to perfection—she cooked his favorite fish curry, massaged his aching shoulders, and listened to his complaints about the plant foreman. But there was a hollowness to her touch, a distraction behind her eyes that Ani, in his exhaustion, failed to notice.


Between Shweta and Sumu, however, the air had thickened into something viscous and volatile. They rarely spoke. When they passed each other in the narrow corridors or on the stairs, eyes were averted, bodies angled away to avoid even the brush of fabric. Yet, the avoidance was an admission in itself. It was a charged silence, heavy with the knowledge of what he had seen and what she had felt. The shame was there, sharp and biting, but it was inextricably tangled with a dark, throbbing anticipation.


Shweta had stopped going to Sumu’s room in the afternoons. The risk felt too great, the temptation too raw. Instead, she had found a new, more dangerous ritual.


It began innocently, or so she told herself. The roof of the third floor—the highest point of the house—was the best place to dry the heavy sarees and bedsheets. It caught the full blast of the morning sun and the dry, hot breeze. But the roof also offered a vantage point. From the pabangt wall, if one stood at just the right angle, one could look directly down onto the first-floor open terrace.


The terrace where Sumu worked out.


It was a Tuesday morning, the sky a blinding, cloudless blue. Shweta climbed the stairs to the roof, a plastic bucket of wet laundry balanced on her hip. The concrete beneath her bare feet was already warm, radiating the stored heat of the sunrise.


She moved to the clothesline that ran along the edge of the roof. She snapped a wet saree—a deep crimson cotton—shaking out the wrinkles with a sharp *thwack*. As she flung it over the wire, her eyes drifted downward, drawn by a magnetic pull she no longer tried to fight.


He was there.


Sumu was in the middle of his routine. From this height, he was unaware of the eyes tracking him, unaware that he was being observed like prey. He had abandoned his vest today. He was shirtless, wearing only low-slung gym shorts, his skin bronzed and gleaming with sweat.


Shweta froze, her hands still clutching the damp fabric of the saree. She stepped closer to the low wall, using the hanging laundry as a partial shield, peering through the gap between the crimson cloth and the concrete pillar.


Sumu was doing burpees. It was a violent, explosive movement. He dropped to the floor, kicked his legs back, did a pushup, and then sprang into the air with a fluid grace that belied his size. *Thud. Hiss. Thud.* The rhythm of his body hitting the mat and the sharp exhalation of his breath drifted up to her, faint but distinct in the morning stillness.


Shweta watched, mesmerized. She watched the way the muscles of his back bunched and released like coiling snakes. She watched the deep groove of his spine, the way the sweat pooled at the base of his lower back before disappearing into the waistband of his shorts. It was a display of raw vitality that was starkly different from Ani’s weary strength. Ani’s body was worn down by the steel plant; Sumu’s was built by will and discipline.


A flush started at the base of her neck, spreading rapidly across her chest. The heat of the roof seemed to intensify, wrapping around her, blurring the line between the external temperature and the internal fire. She felt a bead of sweat trickle down her temple, sliding over her cheekbone to her jaw.


She should look away. She knew she should. *This is a sin,* a voice whispered in her head, sounding remarkably like her mother-in-law. *He is your husband’s brother.*


But her feet remained planted.


Sumu switched exercises, grabbing a heavy kettlebell. He began to swing it, his hips thrusting forward with a powerful, rhythmic cadence. The motion was hypnotic, primal. Shweta’s breath hitched. Her mouth went dry, her tongue feeling heavy and useless.


Absent-mindedly, her right hand drifted up from the laundry line. Her fingers sought the familiar gold chain around her neck—her *mangalsutra*.


She gripped the black beads and the gold pendant, the symbol of her marriage, the sacred thread that bound her to Ani. But instead of grounding her, the gesture became something else. Her fingers rubbed the gold frantically, twisting the chain, the metal biting into the soft skin of her neck.


She watched Sumu’s hips snap forward. *Thrust.*


Her fingers tightened on the *mangalsutra*.


*Thrust.*


Her breathing quickened, becoming shallow and rapid, matching the rhythm of his exertion below. She wasn't just watching him; she was feeling him. The phantom sensation of his skin against hers, the weight of him, the salt-taste of his sweat—it all flooded her imagination with terrifying clarity.


She stood at the edge of the precipice, looking down at the forbidden, rubbing the symbol of her loyalty while her body betrayed her with every racing beat of her heart. The guilt was a sour taste in her mouth, but the arousal was a roaring ocean in her ears, drowning out everything else. She was the dutiful wife on the surface, but up here, under the scorching sun, she was a woman unraveling, pulling at the thread of her own morality, waiting to see what would happen when it finally snapped.
The haunting of Sumu began not with a spirit, but with a memory. The image of Shweta sleeping in his bed, the soft rise of her chest and the shadowed valley of her cleavage, had ceased to be a singular event. It had become a filter, a translucent lens overlaid on his vision, distorting every interaction he had with her.


He found his concentration fracturing during the day. Lines of code on his monitor would blur, replaced by the mental snapshot of her exposed midriff against his grey sheets. To ground himself, to escape the sterile cold of his office, he would wander out into the main house under the pretense of fetching water or checking on his mother. But in truth, he was hunting for glimpses.


The heat of the Bengali summer had turned the house into a pressure cooker, stripping away the layers of formality that usually governed their lives. Shweta, believing herself unobserved in the domestic sphere, had adapted to the temperature.


One afternoon, Sumu walked into the dining space to find her swabbing the floor. She had tucked the pallu of her saree tightly around her waist to keep it from trailing in the wet dust, a practical adjustment that did catastrophic things to Sumu’s composure. The action pulled the fabric taut across her hips, accentuating the flare of her waist, and left her midriff entirely bare.


He stood in the shadow of the doorframe, the glass of water forgotten in his hand. As she bent forward to rinse the rag in the bucket, the muscles of her stomach contracted. There it was—the deep, vertical navel he had seen that day in his room. It was a small, intimate abyss that seemed to mock the distance he was supposed to keep.


She moved with a rhythmic grace, the heat flushing her skin a deep, rosy hue. Her blouse, a thin cotton garment meant for comfort, had surrendered to the humidity. A dark patch of perspiration soaked the fabric between her shoulder blades, rendering the material semi-transparent. Sumu could clearly trace the outline of her bra strap, the hook-and-eye closure pressing against her damp skin.


It was raw. It was domestic. And it was overwhelmingly erotic.


He watched her push a strand of hair from her forehead with the back of her wrist, a sigh escaping her lips. She looked earthy and real, a stark contrast to the polished women he met in his corporate circles. The guilt churned in his gut—this was Ani’s wife, sweating over the floor of their ancestral home—but the desire was a louder, more insistent drumbeat. He wanted to walk over, to place his hand on that glistening back, to taste the salt on her neck.


He turned and retreated to his office before his body could betray him further, leaving the water untouched.


But the dynamic had shifted. It wasn't just him watching her.


The mornings on the terrace became a theater of unspoken communication. At first, Sumu had dismissed the sensation as paranoia—the feeling of eyes boring into his skin while he lifted weights. He told himself it was just the sun, or the neighbors from the adjacent building.


But the feeling was too specific, too localized. It prickled at the back of his neck, a phantom touch that traced his spine whenever he faced away from the upper roof.


He began to test the theory. He would pause his music, straining his ears over the hum of the morning traffic. He would hear the faint, distinct rustle of fabric from the floor above—the heavy swish of a saree being moved, the *clink* of bangles against the pabangt wall.


She was there.


The realization sent a jolt of adrenaline through him that had nothing to do with the caffeine in his pre-workout drink. She was watching him. The shy, demure Shweta, who barely made eye contact at the dinner table, was standing twenty feet above him, drinking in the sight of his body.


It changed the way he moved. The workout ceased to be about fitness and became a performance. When he did his pull-ups, he held the apex of the movement a second longer, letting his lats flare, conscious of how the muscles would look from above. When he curled the dumbbells, he gritted his teeth, allowing a low grunt of exertion to escape, a sound he knew would carry up to her.


He could feel her gaze digging into his back, heavy and palpable. It was a strange, intoxicating feedback loop—her desire feeding his vanity, his display feeding her hunger.


On a Thursday morning, the tension finally snapped.


Sumu had finished a set of overhead presses. He dropped the weights and grabbed his towel, wiping the sweat from his face. Instead of turning back to the glass doors of his office, he pivoted sharply, craning his neck to look directly up at the third-floor roof.


He caught her.


Shweta was leaning over the pabangt, her chin resting on her arms, peering down through the gap between two drying bedsheets. She hadn't expected him to look up so suddenly.


For a second, time suspended. The sounds faded into a dull buzz.


Sumu stared straight into her eyes. He didn't look away. He didn't offer a polite nod or a brotherly wave. He stood there, shirtless, his chest heaving, sweat dripping from his chin, and looked at her with a raw, undisguised intensity that asked a thousand silent questions.


Shweta didn't pull back. The panic he expected to see—the scramble to hide, the look of mortified shame—didn't come.


Instead, a slow, deep blush rose up her neck, visible even from this distance. She held his gaze for a heartbeat, two, three. And then, the corner of her mouth curled up.


It wasn't a nervous twitch. It was a smile. A small, secret, knowing smile that acknowledged the game they were playing.


She finally pulled back, disappearing behind the curtain of laundry, but the afterimage of that smile hit Sumu harder than the weights. She wasn't just a victim of his gaze, nor was she merely a lonely wife looking for distraction. She was a participant. She liked what she saw, and more dangerously, she wanted him to know she was looking.


Sumu stood alone on the burning terrace, his heart hammering against his ribs, realizing with a mix of thrill and terror that the line hadn't just been crossed; it had been erased entirely.


The terrace incident didn't break the tension; it calcified it into something palpable, a heavy, static charge that hung in the air whenever they were in the same room. The clumsy, stumbling avoidance of the early days was gone. In its place was a thick, deliberate silence that felt less like awkwardness and more like a held breath.


When they passed each other in the narrow hallway or stood on opposite sides of the dining table, the air between them seemed to vibrate. Sumu no longer jerked his eyes away in panic. Instead, his gaze became heavier, stickier. It would latch onto the curve of Shweta’s waist where the saree pleats tucked in—a lingering, tactile look that stayed a second, then two seconds longer than was appropriate for a brother-in-law. Sometimes, when she asked for the salt or water, he wouldn't look at the item; his eyes would drop to her full, plump lips, watching the way they moved, his expression guarded but intense.


Shweta, for her part, did not shrink from this scrutiny. The shame was still there, a low hum in the back of her mind, but it was being drowned out by a thrilling, addictive validation. She found herself stealing glances at the broad expanse of his shoulders through his shirts, or the veins in his forearms as he ate. They were playing a dangerous game of chicken, testing the invisible electric fence of their relationship, waiting to see who would get burned first.


Remarkably, the house remained completely oblivious. The domestic machinery churned on, blind to the currents shifting beneath the surface.


Ani’s mother, seeking solace from the heat and her widowhood, had begun spending her evenings at the local Satsang Mandir. Her absence left a quiet void in the house between six and eight in the evening. Jethima, Sumu’s mother, occupied the kitchen during these hours, preparing dinner and watching her daily soaps on the small TV in the dining room.


"Bouma," Jethima would call out, her eyes fixed on the screen, "the tea is ready. Go give it to Sumu, will you? My knees are aching today."


It became a routine, a ritual sanctioned by the very matriarch of the house. Jethima didn't notice the subtle transformations in her niece-in-law before these evening errands. She didn't see Shweta slip into the bathroom to run a comb through her hair, smoothing the frizz caused by the humidity. She didn't smell the fresh, sweet dab of jasmine *attar*—a small vial she had hidden in her drawer—that Shweta applied behind her ears and on her wrists.


And Jethima certainly didn't notice the way Shweta adjusted her saree.


In the safety of her room, before heading downstairs, Shweta would re-dbang the cotton fabric. She would pull the pallu tighter, pinning it in a way that was technically modest but strategically revealing. The fabric would sit lower on her hips, exposing the smooth, pale slope of her waist and the deep indentation of her navel—the very spot she knew Sumu’s eyes were drawn to. It was a silent invitation, a flag of surrender masquerading as traditional attire.


Sumu waited for these moments. Sitting in the cool, artificial twilight of his office, he would listen for the soft slap of her bare feet against the tiles. When the door opened, the scent of jasmine would hit him before the tea did, clouding his senses.


"Your tea," she would say, her voice barely above a whisper.


He would turn from his screen, the blue light reflecting in his eyes, and reach for the cup. This was the crescendo of their day. As she extended the saucer and he reached out, the transfer was never clean.


His fingers would brush against hers—sometimes the tips, sometimes the knuckles, sometimes a deliberate graze of his palm against the back of her hand. The contact was brief, fleeting, but it sent a jolt of electricity through them both that was potent enough to make Shweta’s breath hitch.


He wouldn't pull back immediately. He would hold the saucer, trapping her hand for a micro-second, his eyes locking onto hers, dark and dilated. In that suspended moment, surrounded by the hum of the AC and the scent of jasmine, the familial titles of 'Dada' and 'Bouma' evaporated. There was only the heat of his skin against hers and the terrifying, magnetic pull of gravity drawing them closer.


Then, she would pull away, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs, and leave the room without another word. Sumu would be left staring at the closed door, the ceramic cup rattling slightly in his grip, the ghost of her touch burning his fingertips.


The weekends brought a strange, surreal counterpoint to this rising fever. Ani would return from Durgapur on Saturday evenings, his skin coated in a film of industrial grit, his body sagging with exhaustion.


He expected the complaints. He braced himself for the arguments about his absence, the tears about her loneliness, the accusations of neglect that had defined the last few months.


But they never came.


Shweta met him at the door with a smile. She prepared his bath water, served him his food, and listened to his stories about the plant with a calm, placid demeanor. She didn't fight. She didn't demand. She seemed... content.


"You seem happier," Ani murmured one night, pulling her close in the darkness of their antique bed. He stroked her hair, feeling a surge of gratitude. "I was so worried you were still angry. I'm glad you understand now. I'm doing this for us."


"I know," Shweta whispered into his chest, her eyes wide open in the dark, staring at the wall that separated their room from the hallway that goes into Sumu’s room.


Ani slept soundly that night, holding his wife, believing that their marriage had matured, that she had finally accepted the hardships of their life with grace. He loved her a little more for it, feeling a renewed sense of purpose to work hard for this patient, understanding woman.


He couldn't see the truth. He couldn't see that her lack of conflict wasn't born of understanding, but of distraction. Her emotional void was being filled elsewhere, drop by illicit drop. The boundaries set by society, by family, by the sacred vows of marriage, were blurring day by day, eroding under the friction of stolen glances and accidental touches, until the line between right and wrong was no longer a wall, but a line drawn in the dust, waiting to be crossed.