Misc. Erotica Meera - The Math Teacher

[shamson9571]

Episode 9 – Euler’s Dream
Arjun woke with the taste of confusion still metallic on his tongue.

The night had been a fever of half-dreams: Meera on a brightly lit stage in a crimson bridal saree, Priya in a sherwani leaning in to whisper husband-lines against her ear, the audience roaring while Arjun sat trapped in the front row, unable to move, unable to shout. He had come twice in his sleep, sticky and ashamed, waking each time to the fan’s indifferent whirr and the echo of Priya’s teasing “I’ll pin them myself.”
By morning the jealousy had calcified into something colder: determination.

If Priya wanted to play husband on stage, fine.
He would become indispensable off it.
He reached college before the gates even opened, loitering under the neem tree until the watchman grumbled and let him in. First bench claimed, notebook open to a fresh page titled in bold: Plan to Top the Screening + Make Her Need Me.

Under it he wrote three columns:
Solve every booklet problem before Friday
Ask one brilliant doubt daily that no one else can answer

Offer to help with Olympiad logistics (charts, timers, anything that keeps me near her after 5:30)
He underlined the last line twice.
The bell rang. Students trickled in, gossip already thick as filter coffee.

“Macha, heard the drama script?” Vikram dropped into the seat beside him, eyes gleaming.

“Family comedy—saas-bahu fights, lost-and-found son, the works. And get this: Priya ma’am is playing the husband! Cross-dressing level max. Everyone’s losing it.”

Arjun’s pen dug into the paper hard enough to tear. “Who’s the wife?” he asked, voice flat.

“Still confirming, but everyone says Meera ma’am. Perfect casting, no? Shy bahu, loud hubby—comedy gold.”

Arjun forced a laugh that scbangd his throat. The day blurred until third period.

She walked in wearing navy-blue cotton today—simple, almost severe, the blouse high-necked with three-quarter sleeves, pallu pinned like armour. And yet the severity only sharpened the hunger. The fabric pulled across her breasts when she reached high to write the title:

Euler’s Formula & Complex Numbers

She began: “e^{iπ} + 1 = 0. Five fundamental constants in one elegant identity—perhaps the most beautiful equation in mathematics.”
Arjun heard none of it.

He was tracing imaginary lines: the navy cotton as the real axis, the hidden curve of her breast as the positive imaginary, the dip of her waist as negative imaginary. Every part he had seen - breast swell, navel, armpits, back plane, waist pinch were points on her complex plane. If he could just rotate them 90 degrees, magnify, translate, he would land exactly at the origin that was Meera herself.
He raised his hand before she finished the first example.

“Ma’am, if we treat the human form as a closed contour in the complex plane, could we use residue theorem to… quantify beauty?”

The class snickered. Vikram choked on water.
Meera’s eyebrows lifted, but her mouth curved , half amused, half impressed. “An… unconventional application, Arjun. Beauty isn’t analytic everywhere, I’m afraid. Too many essential singularities.”

She paused, then added softly, “But I like the imagination.”

The tiny praise lit him up like a Gaussian integer. He spent the rest of the period firing questions that danced on the edge of genius and madness—argument principles applied to emotions, branch cuts around forbidden thoughts—each one pulling her closer to his desk, her jasmine and chalk scent stronger with every lean-in. By the end she was laughing quietly, eyes bright.

“You’re in rare form today,” she said as the bell rang. “Save some for the workshop.”

The day dragged until 4 p.m.
Seminar hall. Same hundred-plus students, same yellow booklets.

Arjun attacked the problems like a man possessed. He finished the set in forty minutes, double-checked, then started crafting the perfect doubt—one that would force her to sit beside him for at least ten minutes.

He was circling the final flourish when the door opened again.

Priya, today in a maroon kurti that made her look like a firecracker with legs. She spotted Meera instantly and made a beeline, ignoring the sea of students.

“Decision time, wife,” she announced loudly enough for the first three rows to hear.
“Script reading tomorrow evening, auditorium, 5:30 sharp. I’ve already bribed Shetty sir with filter coffee—he’s agreed to direct. You’re not escaping.”

Meera flushed, tucking an imaginary strand behind her ear. “Priya, lower your voice. And I said I’d think.”

“You thought. Answer is yes.” Priya leaned in, voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur but still audible to Arjun three metres away.
“I even convinced wardrobe aunty for a special costume - silk saree, low-waist dbang for the song sequence. You’ll look criminal. The boys will need oxygen.”

Meera swatted her arm, laughing despite herself. “You’re shameless.”

“And you love it. Say yes, Meera. For the kids. For… science.” Priya’s grin was pure mischief.

A long beat. Meera glanced around—landed on Arjun watching—and something in her softened. “Fine. Yes. But no low-waist nonsense.”

Priya whooped, threw both arms around Meera in a victorious hug that lasted two seconds too long, her palms sliding deliberately down Meera’s back before releasing.
“That’s my wife,” she declared to the room at large, then sauntered out.

The hall erupted in whistles and teasing. Meera’s cheeks were scarlet, but her eyes danced.
Arjun’s booklet trembled in his hands.
The doubt he had so carefully crafted dissolved into dust.

All he could see was tomorrow: Priya’s arms around Meera on stage, scripted touches, scripted lines dripping with subtext, the entire college watching what he could only thieve in glances.
He stayed till 5:30, solving nothing, hearing nothing except the echo of Priya’s “my wife” and Meera’s soft, laughing surrender.

When the session ended he walked home in a daze, the navy-blue saree and maroon kurti chasing each other across his vision like two complex conjugates - mirror images, drawn irresistibly together while he remained on the outside of the unit circle, approaching but never quite touching.

That night he didn’t touch himself.
He lay in the dark staring at the ceiling, heart thumping out an irregular rhythm, and for the first time felt something sharper than desire.

Fear.

Fear that the play would give Priya everything he wanted.
Fear that Meera might like being someone else’s wife, even if only on stage.

Tomorrow the rehearsals began.
And Arjun still hadn’t found a single residue that could cancel Priya out of the equation.

[readersp]

What suspense!!! You are the master!!! Mixing maths with the story line!!! Awesome!!!

[Saj890]

Very good

[shamson9571]

Episode 10 – Critical Points

Arjun barely slept.
The night stretched like an improper integral, diverging slowly toward dawn. Every time he closed his eyes he saw the same scene on loop: the auditorium stage bathed in warm yellow spotlights, Meera in a bridal-red saree, Priya in a crisp sherwani leaning in for the “reconciliation” scene, their faces inches apart, the scripted kiss that would never happen but would feel real enough to the audience - and to him - to shatter something inside his chest.

By 6 a.m. he was up, showered, and pacing his room like a caged derivative.

He needed a plan. Not just to top the Olympiad screening, that was still the goal, but to insert himself into the one place where Meera would spend hours outside class: the drama rehearsals.
He opened his notebook to a new page and wrote in large, determined letters:

OPERATION: BECOME INDISPENSABLE

Offer to help with props/math-themed backdrop (charts, geometry sets, blackboard gags)
Volunteer as prompter or lighting assistant—always near stage

Be the reliable one she turns to when Priya gets too “husbandly”
He underlined the last line three times.
Breakfast was a battlefield of forced smiles. Lakshmi noticed immediately.

“Beta, you look like you fought with your pillow and lost. Drama rehearsals worrying you? Vikram said teachers are doing a play—fun, no?”

Arjun froze, spoon halfway to his mouth. “It’s… fine, Amma. Just Olympiad pressure.”
She ruffled his hair. “Arre, enjoy also. Life not only studies. Go, auto waiting.”

college felt different the moment he stepped through the gates.

The corridors buzzed with Annual Day fever—posters going up, juniors practising dance steps in the quadrangle, the air thick with anticipation and the faint smell of fresh paint from the stage crew. A hand-painted banner already hung over the auditorium entrance:

TEACHERS’ DRAMA – “Ghar Ghar Ki Kahani” – A Family Comedy.

Third period. Meera entered in a soft lavender saree today, the colour of dusk just before the sky gives up its light. The blouse was short-sleeved, modest, but the fabric was lighter than usual—georgette that moved like breath. Her hair was down for the first time in class, falling in loose waves to her mid-back, held away from her face by a simple silver clip. The effect was devastating: younger, softer, almost vulnerable.

Arjun’s heart performed a discontinuity jump.
She began the lesson on integration by parts, voice gentle. “Sometimes the product rule in reverse opens doors we didn’t know existed.”
He barely heard the words. All he could see was that hair—how it would feel between his fingers, how it would curtain their faces if he ever—
He forced the thought down, raised his hand instead.

“Ma’am, for ∫ x e^x dx, why not just guess the antiderivative? Tabular method feels like cheating elegance.”

She smiled—full this time, eyes crinkling. “Because guessing works until it doesn’t. Tabular is systematic—reliable. Like… building trust.”

Their eyes locked a second longer than necessary.
In her mind, unvoiced: He’s relentless today. Good relentless.

The conversation flowed—three questions, each pulling her closer to his bench, her hair brushing his notebook when she leaned over to check his working. Jasmine and something new—lavender talc?—filled the small space between them. When the bell rang she lingered.

“Arjun, the workshop—bring your A-game today. Screening’s Friday.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He hesitated, then plunged. “Ma’am… I heard about the drama. If you need help with props—math-themed ones, like giant blackboards or geometry models—I could…”
Her eyebrows lifted, surprised but pleased. “That’s thoughtful. Actually, yes—Shetty sir wants a ‘study room’ scene with equations on the wall. Accurate ones. Could you design a few boards? Nothing too time-consuming.”

His pulse soared. “Absolutely. I’ll start today.”
She touched his arm lightly—barely a second, fingertips on his sleeve. “Thank you. Really.”
The touch burned through cotton all day.
4 p.m. Seminar hall.

Arjun arrived early, booklet already half-solved, but his real mission was the drama boards. He sketched in the margin: a blackboard with Euler’s identity centre-stage, surrounded by partial fractions that resolved into a heart when viewed from afar—a private joke only he and Meera would understand.

Meera entered, lavender glowing under tube lights, hair still down. She looked tired but radiant—rehearsal energy, perhaps. She distributed new booklets, then paused by his desk.

“Any doubts yet?”
He slid the sketch across. “Not math. Drama. First board draft.”

She leaned over—hair cascading forward, brushing his shoulder like silk rope—and studied it. A soft laugh escaped her. “The heart in the fractions… subtle. Shetty sir will love it. And I… appreciate the elegance.”

Priya chose that moment to burst in, script rolls under her arm like a victorious general.

“Wife! There you are. Quick line-reading before full cast—Shetty sir’s busy with lights. Come, come—terrace scene, very romantic.” She winked outrageously at the room, then hooked an arm through Meera’s and tugged her toward the corner.
Arjun watched, blood pressure spiking, as Priya pulled Meera to the back of the hall.

They sat close on two chairs dragged together, heads bent over the script. Priya’s voice dropped to a theatrical whisper, but fragments carried:
“…and the husband says, ‘All these years I thought I was the head of the house… but you, my dear, are the whole equation.’”
Meera laughed—genuine, unguarded. “Priya, that’s terrible.”

“Wait, wait—then he pulls her close…” Priya demonstrated, arm sliding around Meera’s waist exactly where the pinch had landed days ago, pulling her in until their shoulders touched. Meera didn’t resist, just rolled her eyes and read her line.

Arjun’s vision tunnelled. The booklet blurred. He saw only Priya’s hand on Meera’s waist—possessive, practised—and Meera leaning into it, hair falling across Priya’s shoulder like a curtain closing on a private world.

He stood abruptly, chair scbanging loud enough for heads to turn. Without a word he grabbed his bag and walked out, the screening problems unsolved, the drama boards forgotten on the desk.

Outside in the corridor he leaned against the cool wall, heart hammering so hard it hurt.
Critical point. Maximum or minimum—he couldn’t tell.

All he knew was the function of his obsession had reached a turning point, and the second derivative was screaming danger.

Tomorrow the full rehearsals began.
Tomorrow Priya would have hours to play husband.
Tomorrow he had to find a way to change the equation—or watch it solve itself without him.
He walked home under a sky turning the same bruised lavender as Meera’s saree, the weight of the day settling on his shoulders like an integral he wasn’t sure he could evaluate.

[shamson9571]

Episode 11 – Implicit Differentiation

The screening test was two days away, but Arjun’s mind had already differentiated itself from the Olympiad.

Every derivative he took, every integral he evaluated, looped back to the same fixed point: the auditorium, 5:30 p.m., Meera and Priya alone on stage rehearsing lines that belonged to a husband and wife.

He arrived at college with a plan etched in fire: volunteer so completely for the drama that Meera would have no choice but to see him, need him, prefer him.

First period free, assembly day. He sprinted to the auditorium instead of the quadrangle, slipping through the side door like a shadow. The stage was half-lit, props scattered: a cardboard dining table, plastic flowers, a fake blackboard leaning against the wall waiting for his equations. Shetty sir was nowhere; only two juniors fiddled with lights.
Then she walked in.

Meera, carrying a stack of printed scripts, wearing a simple cream saree with faint gold threads that caught the stage spots and threw them back in soft shards. The blouse was short-sleeved again, the pallu dbangd loosely enough to hint at the curve beneath when she moved. Her hair was tied in a low knot, a few strands already escaping like early doubts.

She spotted him immediately.

“Arjun? Assembly skipped?”
“I… came to work on the boards, ma’am. As promised.” He gestured to the sketches in his hand—three large charts: Euler’s identity blooming into a heart via partial fractions, a second with contour integrals forming the word “Family,” a third with implicit curves that, from a distance, resolved into intertwined initials he prayed no one noticed were M and A.

Her eyes softened. “You really did them. They’re beautiful.”

She stepped closer to examine, the cream saree brushing his arm. Jasmine, stronger today, mixed with the faint warmth of her skin. He inhaled greedily.

“Shall I mount them?” he asked, voice rough.
“Please. Ladder’s there.”
He fetched it, positioned it centre-stage, and climbed. She held the first chart steady below, her fingers occasionally brushing his as he hammered nails. From this height he could see down the modest neckline—just a handspan of shadow, the gentle rise of her breasts with each breath, the gold border of the saree framing the view like a proscenium arch.

Implicit differentiation: she was the curve y = f(x), he the observer trying to find dy/dx without ever seeing the explicit form.

“Careful,” she murmured as he stretched for the top corner. The ladder wobbled; instinctively she steadied it with both hands on the sides—directly below him, face tilted up, throat exposed, the soft hollow at its base pulsing with her heartbeat.
He froze, hammer mid-air.

The view was merciless: hair escaping the knot, lips parted in concern, the cream fabric stretching across her chest as she reached higher. One more step and he could have touched her hair.

“I’m fine, ma’am,” he managed, hammering the last nail harder than needed.

They worked in companionable silence for twenty minutes—him mounting, her passing pins and tape, occasionally laughing at his hidden math jokes in the designs. When the third board was up she stepped back, hands on hips, surveying.

“Perfect. The audience will love the subtlety. You have a real eye, Arjun.”
The praise warmed him more than sunlight.
Then the door banged open.

Priya strode in like she owned the stage, script in one hand, a steel tumbler of filter coffee in the other. She wore a bright yellow kurti today, sleeves rolled to the elbow, short hair tousled as if she’d just run from class.

“Wife! There you are. And… student helper?” She raised an eyebrow at Arjun, smile sharp. “Dedicated, aren’t we?”
Arjun climbed down slowly, pulse thudding.
Meera smiled, a little flustered. “Arjun designed the math boards. They’re brilliant.”

Priya glanced up, eyes narrowing at the heart hidden in the fractions. Something flickered across her face—recognition? amusement?—then vanished.

“Talented boy,” she said lightly.
“But playtime’s over. Shetty sir’s stuck in a meeting—asked me to run lines with you. Terrace scene, very emotional. Arjun, you can… watch and learn?”
The invitation was polite, but the subtext clear: stay if you dare.

Meera hesitated, then nodded. “Arjun, thank you so much. You’ve saved us. We’ll manage from here.”

Dismissal. Soft, kind, but final.
He gathered his tools slowly, every second a battle not to look back. At the door he paused.
“If you need anything else, ma’am—lights, cues, whatever—I’m free after Olympiad workshop.”
Meera’s smile was grateful. “I’ll remember. Go study—you have screening Friday.”

Priya’s voice floated after him, already in character: “Darling wife, come here… let’s fight under the stars.”

He walked out into the corridor, the auditorium door closing with a soft click that sounded, to him, like a boundary condition being set.

The rest of the day was torture.

Math period: implicit differentiation on the board, but all he could see was the explicit curve of her body beneath cream chiffon when she had looked up at him on the ladder. Olympiad workshop: he solved nothing, staring at the drama boards he had hung, the hidden heart now a public joke.
At home he barely ate. Lakshmi’s worried questions floated past him. In his room he opened the notebook and stared at his plan.

OPERATION: BECOME INDISPENSABLE
Crossed out.
Below it he wrote a single line:
She doesn’t need me. She has Priya.

Then he closed the book, lay back, and for the first time since Meera had walked into his life, felt the terrifying possibility that the function of his desire might have no real root—that the curve he worshipped might never intersect his axis at all.
Outside, the Bangalore night pressed hot and close, and somewhere across the city, Meera and Priya were rehearsing lines that belonged to a husband and wife.

Arjun stared at the ceiling until the fan blurred into a rotating complex plane, and the critical point he had reached felt less like a maximum and more like the beginning of a very steep descent.

[readersp]

Wonderful!!! Hoping for great times for Arjun!!!

[shamson9571]

Episode 12 – Related Rates

Thursday. One day before the Olympiad screening.
Arjun woke with the hollow certainty that everything was slipping through his fingers like sand in a related-rates problem: the faster he tried to grasp, the quicker it escaped.

He had not slept well.

The image of Priya’s arm around Meera’s waist in the seminar hall had metastasised into a full-blown nightmare: the two of them on stage, Priya in sherwani pulling Meera into a slow, scripted dance, Meera’s laughter no longer shy but open, her body leaning into Priya’s with the ease of long familiarity. In the dream the audience applauded, and Arjun stood alone in the wings holding a forgotten prop blackboard that read, in his own handwriting, dy/dt = 0.

He dragged himself to college early again, but this time without a plan—only a desperate need to see her, to confirm she still existed outside the nightmare.

The sky had opened overnight. Monsoon’s delayed revenge: rain lashing the city in sheets, turning Hosur Road into a river of red taillights and splashing potholes. By the time his auto reached college he was half-soaked despite the flapping plastic side-curtains.

The corridors were unusually quiet—many students late or absent. Umbrellas bloomed like black mushrooms in the foyer. Arjun shook water from his hair and headed straight to 12-A.
Third period. She was already there, writing on the board, back to the door.

Today she wore a deep maroon cotton saree, the colour of wet earth after rain. The blouse was matching maroon, three-quarter sleeves, but the pallu was dbangd loosely because of the humidity. Her hair was in a French braid, damp at the ends—she must have walked from the staff parking without an umbrella.

She turned when he entered. Only three other students had braved the storm.
“Good morning, Arjun. Terrible weather.”

He nodded, throat tight. The rain drummed on the tin roof like impatient fingers.

The lesson was related rates: ladders sliding down walls, cones filling with water, shadows lengthening. Classic problems. But today every example felt personal.

“Imagine a girl walking away from a lamp post,” Meera said, drawing a triangle on the board. “Her shadow lengthens as she moves. We relate the rate at which she walks to the rate at which the shadow grows.”

Arjun stared at the diagram: girl, lamp, shadow.
He saw Meera walking away from him, Priya’s shadow stretching longer and longer behind her.
When she assigned practice problems, he worked mechanically. Then the power flickered—once, twice—and died. The tube lights went out, plunging the room into grey monsoon gloom. Rain roared louder without the hum of fans.

Meera sighed. “Generator will take ten minutes. Let’s continue with what light we have.”
She walked to the window to pull the curtains wider. As she reached up, the maroon saree—already damp from rain—clung to her body in patches. The pallu slipped off her shoulder completely, catching on her elbow.

And there it was.

Her saree had absorbed water at the hem and lower pleats. The weight pulled the tuck slightly loose. For one suspended moment, as she strained for the curtain cord, the fabric shifted and revealed a thin, glistening line of midriff—and the edge of her navel, deeper maroon against her skin, shadowed and wet from raindrops that had somehow found their way under the pallu.

Arjun’s breath stopped.

Related rates in real time: the rate at which the pallu slid (slow, gravity-assisted), the rate at which his heart accelerated (exponential), the rate at which blood rushed south (instantaneous, infinite).
She tugged the curtain, the pallu fell back into place, and the moment ended. But the image was seared: the navel framed by wet maroon cotton, a single raindrop clinging to the rim like a misplaced constant.

The lights flickered back on. Class resumed as if nothing had happened.

But something had.

After the bell, as students dashed through corridors to the next period, Arjun lingered.

“Ma’am…the screening tomorrow. I’m… ready.”
She looked at him—really looked—concern softening her eyes. “You seem tense. Rain making everyone gloomy. You’ll do wonderfully. Just breathe.”

He nodded, unable to speak. The wet navel burned behind his eyelids.

The rest of the day was underwater. Olympiad workshop cancelled due to power issues. Drama rehearsal postponed—Shetty sir stuck in traffic.
Arjun wandered the empty corridors until he found himself outside the auditorium again. The door was ajar. He slipped in.

The stage was dark, but a single work-light glowed. Props lay scattered. On the fake dining table sat a forgotten steel tumbler—coffee, cold now. Priya’s, probably.

He walked onto the stage, stood where Meera would stand tomorrow in full costume, and looked out at the empty seats.

Then he saw it.
Taped to the fake blackboard—his blackboard—was a yellow Post-it in Meera’s neat handwriting:
Arjun—boards are perfect. Thank you. Come to full rehearsal tomorrow 5 p.m. if you can. We need a reliable prompter. – M

His heart performed a related rate of its own: distance to her decreasing, rate of change suddenly positive.

He peeled the note carefully, folded it into his pocket next to his heart, and walked out into the rain without an umbrella.

The water soaked him to the skin, but he didn’t feel cold.

Tomorrow the screening.
Tomorrow the rehearsal.
Two events, same girl, two different rates of approach.
He would be there for both.
And this time, he would not stand in the wings.

[readersp]

Masterful as usual!!! Keep going boss!!!

[shamson9571]

Episode 13 – The Coffee Incident

Friday. Screening day.

Arjun woke before the alarm, the Post-it note from Meera still folded in his shirt pocket like a talisman. He had read it a hundred times in the dark: Come to full rehearsal tomorrow 5 p.m. if you can. We need a reliable prompter.

Today was two battles: morning screening to secure his place in the top thirty, evening rehearsal to secure his place near her.

He dressed carefully, crisp white shirt, tie knotted tight—and reached college an hour early. The exam hall for the screening was the seminar room, desks spaced pandemic-style, yellow question booklets already sealed on each. Only forty-three candidates had shown up consistently; thirty spots waited.

Arjun took his seat in the second row, pen uncapped, mind razor-sharp. The problems were brutal—INMO-level inequalities, geometry with complex numbers, a vicious functional equation—but he flowed through them like water finding cracks. Three hours later he handed in his paper with ten minutes to spare, certain of at least twenty-eight out of thirty.

As students filed out comparing answers, he lingered near the door. Meera was invigilating with Shetty sir; she caught his eye and gave a small thumbs-up, lips curving in that private way that made his stomach flip.

He floated through the rest of the day on adrenaline and caffeine. No classes—just waiting, buzzing. At 4:30 the corridor outside the staff room filled with drama chatter. Priya’s voice carried:
“Full dress rehearsal tomorrow, people—costumes mandatory!”

Arjun’s heart hammered. He needed coffee—strong, black, something to steady him before the evening.

He slipped out the side gate, rain reduced to a drizzle now, and walked the ten minutes to the Café Coffee Day in Koramangala 4th Block—the one Meera had once mentioned in passing as her weekend haunt.

He pushed open the glass door, air-conditioning hitting him like a cold derivative. The place was half-empty, soft jazz playing, the smell of roasted beans thick and comforting.

And there she was.

Meera sat alone at a corner table by the window, rain-streaked glass behind her, a half-finished cappuccino in front of her. She wore jeans again, dark blue, fitted—and a simple white kurti that ended just at her hips, sleeves rolled to the elbow. Hair loose, still slightly damp from the drizzle, falling in waves over one shoulder. No saree, no teacher armour—just Meera, twenty-something, beautiful in a way that punched the air from his lungs.

She was reading a book, some dog-eared paperback, completely absorbed.
He stood frozen in the doorway, drip-drip from his umbrella pooling on the mat.

Then she looked up.
Their eyes met across the café.
Surprise flickered across her face, then recognition, then warmth.

“Arjun?” She closed the book, smiled.
“What are you doing here?”
He walked over on legs that felt borrowed.
“Coffee. Screening high. Needed… fuel.”
She laughed softly.
“Sit. Please.”
He slid into the chair opposite, heart trying to escape his ribcage.

She pushed the menu toward him. “Order something. My treat—you probably aced it.”
He ordered a cold coffee, hands shaking slightly. The waiter left.

Silence settled—comfortable, but charged.
“You look… different,” he said, then immediately regretted how lame it sounded.

She glanced down at her kurti and jeans, self-conscious fingers tugging the hem. “Off-duty. Sarees are lovely, but weekends demand freedom.” She tilted her head.
“You’re always in uniform. Even your casual must be neat, no?”

He shrugged, suddenly aware of his tie.
“Habits.”
The cold coffee arrived. He sipped, buying time.
She leaned forward slightly, elbows on the table. “How did the screening really go? Honest.”
“Good. I think. Twenty-eight, maybe twenty-nine.”
Her eyes lit up.
“That’s brilliant. You’ll be in the thirty easily.” She reached across and tapped his wrist lightly—congratulatory, teacherly.
“Proud of you.”

The touch lingered half a second longer than necessary. He felt it travel up his arm like current.
They talked - easily, surprisingly. About the screening problems (she’d set two of them), about JEE pressure, about Bangalore’s endless rain. She told him about growing up in Udupi, temple festivals and beach mornings. He told her about his architecture dreams, sketching buildings that touched the sky.

Outside, the drizzle thickened again.
She checked her watch.
“Rehearsal in an hour. Priya will kill me if I’m late, she’s already texting husband reminders.”
The word husband landed like a stone in his stomach.

He seized the moment.
“Ma’am… about the prompter thing. I’ll be there tonight. And tomorrow. Whatever you need.”
Gratitude softened her face.
“You don’t have to, Arjun. It’s your weekend too.”
“I want to.”
She studied him for a long moment—something unreadable in her eyes. Then she nodded.
“Okay. Thank you.”
They stood to leave. He insisted on paying; she let him, but only after promising “next time my treat.”
At the door she opened a small umbrella—black, compact.
“Walk with me? My scooty’s two streets away.”
He stepped under it with her, shoulder almost brushing hers, the rain drumming softly above them. Jasmine and coffee and warm skin filled the small space beneath the nylon.

They walked in silence for half a block, then she spoke quietly.

“You’re a good student, Arjun. More than that—you’re… kind. Thoughtful. Don’t let the pressure change that.”

He swallowed.
“I won’t.”
At her scooty she paused, helmet in hand.
“See you at rehearsal?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She smiled small, almost shy, then kick-started the engine and pulled away, taillight disappearing into the rain.

Arjun stood in the drizzle long after she was gone, cold coffee forgotten in his hand, the taste of possibility sharp on his tongue.

Tonight he would sit in the dark auditorium with the script in his lap, feeding her lines when she forgot them.

Tonight he would be the voice she listened for.
Tonight, for the first time, the distance between them felt like it might—just might—be decreasing.

[readersp]

Absorbing as usual!!! Rooting for Arjun!!!

[LovePookie]

extrodinary

[shamson9571]

Episode 14 - Taylor series

Saturday morning. No college. No Olympiad workshop. Just the drama rehearsal at 5 p.m. and an entire day stretching ahead like an infinite series Arjun had no idea how to sum.

He tried studying, JEE mocks, calculus revisions, but every polynomial reminded him of her curves, every convergence test of how close he had come yesterday under that tiny umbrella. The café conversation replayed endlessly: her laugh when he mispronounced “Udupi,” the way her fingers had curled around the cappuccino cup, the casual brush of her knee against his under the small table when she shifted.
By noon he was restless, pacing his room like a particle in a box with no escape velocity.

Today was the first full dress rehearsal—costumes, lights, the whole cast. Today he would sit in the front row with the prompt script in his lap and Meera’s voice in his ears for hours.
He reached college at 4:30 p.m., half an hour before call time.

The auditorium was already alive: juniors running cables, Shetty sir barking orders, the smell of fresh paint and hot halogen lamps thick in the air. The stage had transformed overnight—a living-room set with sofa, dining table, fake window showing a painted Bangalore skyline. His math boards hung proudly on the “study” wall, the hidden heart in the fractions catching the light whenever a spot swept across.

He found a seat in the third row, centre, script open on his knee even though he had memorised most of it. The cast trickled in: Mrs. Nair in a glittering green saree and heavy jewellery, already practising her saas glare; Mr. Shetty in kurta-pyjama looking harassed; D’Souza sir muttering lines under his breath.

Then Priya entered — sherwani tailored sharp, cream with gold embroidery, hair slicked back, a fake moustache that somehow made her look dangerously handsome. She carried herself with swagger, greeting everyone with loud “Arre bhai!” and back-slaps.

Finally, Meera.

She stepped onto the stage from the wings and the entire auditorium seemed to inhale.

She wore a bridal-red silk saree—low-waist as Priya had teased, the pleats tucked just below her navel, the pallu dbangd elegantly over one shoulder. The blouse was sleeveless, deep red with delicate gold work, leaving her arms and a generous sliver of midriff bare. Her hair was loose, wavy, adorned with a single strand of jasmine pinned behind one ear. Minimal jewellery—a thin gold chain, small jhumkas—yet she looked like every wedding fantasy Arjun had never allowed himself to have.

[shamson9571]

Priya let out a low whistle. “Wah, meri biwi! Aag lagaa di.”

Meera laughed, embarrassed, adjusting the pallu self-consciously. “This dbang is dangerous. One wrong move and…”
“And the audience gets a geography lesson,” Priya finished, grinning.
Arjun stood frozen by the blackboard, script forgotten in his hand.

Shetty sir clapped for attention. “Places! Act One from top. Arjun—prompt if needed.”
The lights dimmed to a warm amber. The play began.

Arjun barely followed the plot, something about a modern wife and traditional saas clashing, misunderstandings, eventual harmony. All he saw was Meera moving across the stage: the red silk catching light with every step, the low dbang revealing the smooth plane of her midriff whenever she turned, the jasmine in her hair releasing scent that drifted down to him on the auditorium air-conditioning.

In the second scene Priya—as the husband—returned “from office” and pulled Meera into a playful argument that ended with her hands on Meera’s waist, spinning her once. The red saree flared; the audience (mostly crew) whooped. Meera laughed - genuine, breathless and for a moment leaned back against Priya’s chest, head tilted, the curve of her neck exposed.

Arjun’s grip on the script crumpled the paper.
The terrace scene - the one Priya had rehearsed with Meera was next.
Lights shifted to cool blue. Fake stars glittered on the backdrop.

Priya (husband) cornered Meera (wife) against the painted pabangt.
Lines flowed: accusations, hurt feelings, the slow thaw.
Then the scripted moment: Priya stepped close, cupped Meera’s face gently, and delivered the big reconciliation line:
“All these years I thought equations needed solving… but you, jaaneman, are the constant I never want to differentiate.”

The crew aww-ed. Priya’s thumbs brushed Meera’s cheeks — real tenderness in the gesture, not just acting. Meera’s eyes fluttered closed for a heartbeat.
Arjun felt something inside him fracture along a clean, sharp line.
The scene ended. Lights up.

The cast applauded. Shetty sir declared it “almost perfect.”

Arjun sat in the dark after everyone left, long after the lights dimmed, staring at the empty stage.
The Taylor series of his feelings had converged to a single, terrifying term:
He was in love with her.
Not infatuation. Not obsession.
Love.

And tomorrow there would be another rehearsal.
And the day after, another.
And every day, the series would add one more term, expanding, growing, until it either converged to her - or diverged into something he could no longer control.
He folded the prompter’s script carefully, slipped it into his bag, and walked home through streets still wet from yesterday’s rain.
The city smelled of jasmine and wet earth.
Just like her.

[readersp]

MAsterful!!!

[Saj890]

Very good

[readersp]

Please give updates boss!!! Waiting for your updates!!!

[shamson9571]

Hello friends, sorry for the delay
Banger update drops tonight

[readersp]

Waiting eagerly!!!

[readersp]

Hello..Happy New Year!!! You promised a big update!!! Waiting eagerly!!!

[shamson9571]

Episode 15 – Mean Value Theorem

Sunday. No college. No workshop. Just the second full dress rehearsal at 4 p.m. and a day that felt like the longest interval in Arjun’s life.

He woke early, the fracture from last night still raw.
Love. The word sat heavy on his tongue, undeniable now. Not the filmy kind with songs and running through airports, but something quieter and more dangerous: the certainty that her happiness mattered more than his own, even if it meant watching her laugh in someone else’s arms on stage.

He spent the morning trying to study—vector calculus, triple integrals—but every theorem reminded him of her. The Mean Value Theorem especially mocked him: somewhere between his starting point (infatuation) and now, there had to be an instant where the rate of change of his feelings equalled the average rate over the whole interval. That instant had been yesterday, under the blue terrace lights, when Priya’s thumbs brushed Meera’s cheeks and Arjun’s heart accepted what his mind had been denying for weeks.

By noon he gave up pretending to revise. He showered, changed into his best casual shirt (light blue, the colour of her first saree), and left the house under the pretext of “library.” Instead he walked aimlessly through Koramangala’s quieter lanes, past cafés spilling filter-coffee aromas, past couples sharing earphones under trees. Every woman in red made his pulse spike until he realised it wasn’t her.

At 3:30 he reached college. The auditorium was already humming—today was open to a small invited audience: a few teachers, some senior students, parents of the cast. Sports Day practice had ended early; the field was free, but Arjun had no interest in running.

He slipped into the auditorium through the side entrance. The house lights were half-up, seats filling slowly. He took his usual prompter spot in the third row, script in lap, but his eyes searched only for her.

The cast was backstage. He could hear Priya’s voice carrying: “Wife, where’s my lucky sherwani button? You hid it again!”

Meera’s laugh floated back, light and fond. “Check your pocket, drama queen.”

Arjun’s stomach twisted.
Lights dimmed. Shetty sir welcomed the small audience. Curtain.

Act One began smoothly—Mrs. Nair stealing the show as the domineering saas, D’Souza grumbling perfectly. Then Meera entered for her first scene.
Today the costume was different: a deep green lehenga-choli for the “post-marriage family function” sequence, the choli cropped short, leaving her entire midriff bare from just below the blouse to the low lehenga skirt. A thin gold chain circled her waist, dipping into her navel like an accent mark on a perfect sentence.

Arjun forgot to breathe.
The green silk caught every light, the bare midriff glowing warm gold under the spots. When she moved—dancing lightly to a recorded filmi track for the sangeet scene—the chain swayed, drawing the eye inexorably to the navel he had glimpsed only in fragments before: deep, symmetrical, the soft skin around it rising and falling with her breath like a slow cosine wave.

Mean Value Theorem in flesh: over the interval of her movement, there existed a moment where the rate of his heartbeat equalled the average rate of his obsession—and that moment was now.
The dance ended. Applause. Priya entered as the husband, pulling Meera into a playful twirl that ended with her back against Priya’s chest, Priya’s hands resting possessively on Meera’s bare waist, thumbs brushing the gold chain.

The audience cooed. Arjun’s vision narrowed to those hands—Priya’s fingers splayed across skin he had only worshipped from afar.
The terrace scene came too soon.
Blue lights. Fake moon. Same lines.
But today, with an audience, the acting felt different—bolder. Priya stepped close, cupped Meera’s face exactly as rehearsed, but this time her thumbs lingered longer, tracing the line of Meera’s jaw before sliding down to rest at the base of her throat—just above the choli neckline, over the soft hollow between collarbones.

Meera’s eyes fluttered closed again, longer this time. Her lips parted on the final line: “You are my constant… through every variable.”
The audience sighed. A few teachers clapped softly.

Arjun stood abruptly, script falling to the floor with a soft thud no one noticed. He walked out of the auditorium on legs that didn’t feel like his, down the corridor, out into the sports field where the evening sun was setting fire to the clouds.
He ran.

Not away from the college, but toward the empty 800-metre track that circled the ground. He ran like he had never run before—not for PT marks, not for house points, but to outrun the image of Priya’s hands on Meera’s skin, the softness in Meera’s eyes that wasn’t for him.

Lap one: anger—at Priya, at himself, at the unfairness of it all.

Lap two: despair—the certainty that he would always be the prompter, never the husband.

Lap three: clarity—the Mean Value Theorem cutting clean through the noise.

There exists a point in time where the instantaneous rate of change equals the average.
He slowed on the fourth lap, chest burning, sweat mixing with something that might have been tears. He stopped at the finish line, hands on knees, gasping.

Coach Matthew, watching from the pavilion, blew his whistle. “Rao! Good timing—3:12 for 800 m. Personal best?”

Arjun straightened, lungs on fire. “Yes, sir.”
Coach grinned. “Keep that fire. Inter-house next week—you’re my anchor.”

Arjun nodded, wiping his face with his shirt hem.
He had run his fastest not because he was chasing a medal, but because he was running from a truth he couldn’t yet face.

He walked back slowly, cooling down, the sun dipping low.
The rehearsal would be ending soon. He could still catch the final bows.

He re-entered the auditorium just as the lights came up for curtain call. The small audience applauded enthusiastically. The cast bowed—Mrs. Nair milking it, Priya blowing kisses, Meera smiling shyly, hands pressed together in namaste.

Then something happened.
As the cast straightened, Meera’s eyes scanned the small crowd—and landed on him, standing at the back, sweat-soaked shirt clinging to him, chest still heaving from the run.

Her smile changed. Not the polite teacher smile, not the stage smile, but something softer, surprised, almost… proud?

She held his gaze for three full seconds—long enough for Priya to notice and follow her line of sight, eyebrow arching.

Then the lights dimmed for the crew bow, and the moment broke.
But it had existed.

A point on the interval where the derivative of her attention matched the average of his effort.
He walked home in the dark, the city lights flickering on one by one.

Tomorrow there would be another rehearsal.
Tomorrow the play would be one day closer to opening night.

But tonight, for the first time, he felt the curve of possibility bend—just slightly—toward him.
The Mean Value Theorem had spoken.
And somewhere on that interval, everything had changed.