Adultery Radiance of Vanitha, Daughter-in-Law and Instagram Influencer

[Bowlg78]

Did you enjoy the part where he held her face with his palm and caressed her face and cheeks while violently fucking hard at the same time at this?

Yeah enjoyed a lot...

But...the way ... seducing and teasing of selvam by Vanitha....so hot...

Which makes...so hot and erotic....

Hot talks also.... enriching the story...very...much...

Thank..you...adams...for this wonderful story...with Beauty of Vanitha and ur writing skills

[adams_masala]

Yeah enjoyed a lot...

But...the way ... seducing and teasing of selvam by Vanitha....so hot...

Which makes...so hot and erotic....

Hot talks also.... enriching the story...very...much...

Thank..you...adams...for this wonderful story...with Beauty of Vanitha and ur writing skills

Yes she tends to seduce him because from time to time Selvam comes to his senses and tries to avoid her and she brings him right back in.

[Bowlg78]

Yes she tends to seduce him because from time to time Selvam comes to his senses and tries to avoid her and she brings him right back in.

Awesome.... waiting...for more...now.....


Next update please...

[chellaporukki]

Daughter in law in the title can be removed. Selvam has never thought her like that nor did she behaved like that with him. So it makes no sense.

[adams_masala]

Daughter in law in the title can be removed. Selvam has never thought her like that nor did she behaved like that with him. So it makes no sense.

Should I also remove Vanitha from title and call it “Radiance of Selvam - AI Architect”? No. She’s his daughter-in-law end of the day.

[mulaikallan]

Let the architect of the family selvam build everything new from scratch.

[adams_masala]

Awesome.... waiting...for more...now.....


Next update please...

It’s in the process of writing. Will update soon.

[adams_masala]

Let the architect of the family selvam build everything new from scratch.

I like this view.

[X_writer]

I thought now the story will revolve around Selvam & Vanitha only but you've added new female character
Too many characters spoils the story

Let the fucking session between Vanitha and her new husband continue
Let them explore new things, new places

[adams_masala]

Chapter 67: First Gathering

Scene 1

It was Sunday morning. Vanitha was at the stove flipping a second round of dosas when the doorbell rang.

“I got it.” Ashok was already off the couch with his phone in his hand. He opened the front door and his voice went warm the way it went warm at the office when a client came in. “Summer. Come in, come in.”

Vanitha wiped her hands on the cloth at her hip. She turned the flame down under the pan.

Summer came in behind Ashok. She was in jeans and a soft white button-down tied at the waist and her hair was down and loose the way it had been down and loose on the video call, thick dark blonde waves over her shoulders. She carried a small paper bag with a bakery name on the side.

“Hi.” Summer came around the island. Her eyes went over the kitchen the way a guest’s eyes went over a kitchen, landing on the brass pots on the wall, the small altar in the corner, the plate of idlis already steaming on the counter. “This smells amazing.”

“Come, come.” Vanitha put the dosa on a plate. She pushed the plate across the island. “Sit. You are just in time. Ashok, pour her coffee.”

“I brought these.” Summer set the paper bag down. “Blueberry scones. I wasn’t sure what the protocol was.”

“There is no protocol, Summer.” Vanitha laughed. She opened the bag and set the scones on a plate of their own. “In this house the protocol is eat what is in front of you.”

Latha came down the stairs then, small and quiet, in a pale blue kurti. She stopped at the bottom step when she saw Summer. Her hand went to her braid.

“Latha. Come. This is Summer, the one who built the app for mama.”

“Hi, Latha.” Summer turned on her stool and smiled the full warm smile that Vanitha had seen her smile twice already on the call yesterday. “Ashok has told me so much about you.”

Latha came the rest of the way down. She folded her hands at her waist, small, the way she folded them when she met new people. “Hello.”

“Sit next to me.” Summer patted the stool. “I want to know everything about you.”

Latha sat. She did not look up for a minute.

Vanitha poured the chutney into a small bowl and set it in front of Summer. “Eat. Before the dosa goes cold.”

Summer tore a piece. She dipped it. She ate it. Her eyes closed for a half second.

“Okay. I’m moving in.”

“Ashok, she says she is moving in.” Vanitha laughed.

“Guest room is open.” Ashok slid the coffee across to Summer.

“My wife is going to spoil you until you can’t leave.”

“Too late. I’m already spoiled.” Summer pulled the coffee toward her. She took one sip and set it down. “Okay. Business. Do you want to hear the numbers before or after breakfast?”

“Before.” Vanitha sat down on the stool across the island. “Tell me.”

“Nine thousand two hundred uploads as of this morning.”

Vanitha put her hand flat on the counter. She felt her own mouth open a little.

“In one night.”

“In one night, from one reel.” Summer was watching her face.

“Vanitha. I build apps for a living. I’ve launched products at companies a hundred times bigger than this. I’ve never seen this rate. Not once.”

“My girls came through, mama.” Vanitha turned to Selvam, who had come in from the hall and was standing by the coffee machine. “I told you they would.”

“You told me, ma.”

“Ashok, did you hear?”

“I heard.” Ashok was smiling his small proud smile, the one he smiled at her from across rooms. “Nine thousand women listened to my wife.”

“Your wife’s reel converted at a number I’m going to have to look up later because I don’t think I’ve ever seen the number she converted at.” Summer was shaking her head. “You have a following I would kill for. Honestly. The way they trust you.”

“They trust me because I don’t lie to them.” Vanitha shrugged.

“About what a saree fits like. About what a body looks like. I show them mine.”

“That is the thing.” Summer turned on the stool toward her. Her eyes were warm. “I watch your reels. I’ve been watching them since Selvam showed me the prototype. You carry sensuality like it’s a language and not a costume. Most women in my industry don’t have that. They put it on in the morning and take it off at night.”

Vanitha’s cheek went warm. She did not let it show on her face. “That is a very nice thing to say.”

“It’s true. That’s why I said it.”

“And you.” Vanitha pointed at her with the wooden spoon. “You build the app that measures the woman and you also model the lingerie the woman wants to put on. This is my kind of woman, Ashok.”

“I told you, baby.”

Latha looked up. Her eyes were on Summer. She spoke small, to her plate first and then to Summer’s shoulder.

“Akka, you are really a model?”

“I really am, Latha.”

“Like, for magazines?”

“Sometimes magazines. Mostly catalog and campaign work. Lingerie, mostly. A few swimsuit lines.”

Latha’s eyes went a little rounder. She picked at the edge of her dosa.

“What is it like, akka?”

“Oh my god.” Summer set her coffee down. “Okay. So last week I did a shoot in the city. In a studio. Three softboxes, a white chaise, one of those fans that are supposed to make your hair do this glamorous thing.”

She swept her own hair back with her hand.

“The fan broke. Halfway through. So the photographer, this British guy, is standing there with a broken fan trying to flap my hair with a piece of cardboard. And I’m trying to do sultry lip bite. And he’s got this big piece of cardboard, flapping.”

Latha laughed. It was a small laugh, the first one Vanitha had heard out of her in the morning, and it came up out of her like a small surprise.

“And then his assistant came out with a leaf blower. An actual leaf blower. From the garage downstairs. Just held it about a foot from my head.”

“No.”

“Yes. For three hours. I went home with my hair looking like I had touched an electrical outlet.”

Ashok was laughing. Vanitha was laughing. Latha had her hand over her mouth.

“That is not what I thought modeling was, akka.”

“That is exactly what modeling is, Latha. Ninety percent leaf blower.”

“I love her.” Vanitha turned to Ashok. “Kanna, I love her.”

“I know, baby.”

Summer leaned her elbows on the counter. “Okay. I have an idea. And I want all three of you girls to say yes.”

“Yes.” Vanitha did not wait for the idea.

“You don’t know what it is yet.”

“I said yes.”

“Lingerie shopping. All three of us. Me, Vanitha, Latha. I know a place in the city. They do private appointments. Champagne. The whole thing.”

Latha had gone pink. She was looking at her plate.

“Akka, I don’t...I don’t really...”

“That is exactly why you are coming.” Vanitha reached across and took Latha’s hand. “You live in this house. You are twenty-three years old. You are allowed to own one bra that is not from the market shop. Mama, tell her.”

“I am out of the room on this conversation, ma.” Selvam was pouring his own coffee at the machine. His back was to them. Vanitha saw his shoulders move with a small laugh.

“Ashok, tell her.”

“Latha.” Ashok turned on the stool. His voice was the soft kind voice he used with her. “That sounds like a great experience for all of you. Go. Have fun. Put it on my card.”

Latha’s eyes had gone very wide. She looked at Ashok a half second longer than she should have, and Vanitha saw it, and she tucked the seeing of it away for later.

“Okay, akka.”

“Yes?”

“Yes.”

“Done.” Summer clapped her hands once, light. “Thursday. I’ll book it.”

Vanitha picked up her coffee. She watched Summer over the rim of the cup. She watched the way Summer ate, the way she laughed, the way she had come into the house and made room for herself in it inside of fifteen minutes.

She watched Selvam at the coffee machine. He had not turned around.

She smiled, small, at the inside of her cup.

Scene 2

After breakfast Selvam led Summer up the stairs to the guest room at the end of the hall.

“This is the office for now.” He opened the door. “Ashok gave me the biggest guest room. I took the desk and put it against the window.”

“You have two monitors.”

“I have two monitors because you told me on the call yesterday to get two monitors.”

“Good. I’m a good influence.”

The room was tidy the way his rooms were tidy. The bed made. The shoes lined up at the wall. The desk along the window with the laptop docked and the two monitors on small stands. A single chair. He pulled the chair out for her.

“Take the chair.”

“Where will you sit?”

He looked around. There was no second chair. The bench at the foot of the bed was too low for the desk. He pulled a small stool out from the closet, the one he kept for when he tied his shoes in the morning.

“I will sit on this.”

“Selvam, no. That’s three inches off the ground.”

“I will sit on the bed.”

“Sit in the chair. I’ll sit on the arm. It’s fine.”

He sat. He did not argue. She came around the back of the chair and settled herself on the armrest, her hip against his shoulder, her thigh a half inch from his elbow on the rest. The white button-down was cool against the thin cotton of his shirt and her hair smelled of something fresh, gbangfruit maybe, a sweet perfume.

He woke the screens.

The admin dashboard came up on the left. The training pipeline on the right. The counter at the top of the admin had moved while they were at breakfast. It sat at ten thousand one hundred and twelve.

“Another nine hundred since I walked in your door.” Summer leaned forward. Her shoulder pressed against his. She did not pull it back. “We’re going to have to scale the bucket tonight.”

“Scale how.”

“I’ll show you. Pull up the data set.”

He clicked. The training view came up. The thumbnails loaded in a grid, small squares, hundreds of them per page. Women against bedroom walls. Women in bathroom mirrors. Women in what looked like the back of a closet, the hanging ends of kurtas visible behind them. Some in bras. Most not.

He felt the heat come up his throat. He kept his eyes on the upper right of the screen where the system information sat, and he read numbers there instead of letting them travel.

Summer was watching him. He felt her watching.

“Selvam.”

“Mm.”

“You okay?”

“I am okay.”

“You’re not looking at the grid.”

“I am looking at the grid.”

“You are looking at the system panel.”

He laughed once, small, out of one side of his mouth. He did not look at her.

“Alright. I am looking at the system panel.”

Her hand came down. It landed light on his thigh, above the knee, through the cotton of his track pants. It did not move after it landed. It sat there, small and warm and not going anywhere.

“You’re doing great with this, Selvam.”

“Am I.”

“Most men wouldn’t handle these images so professionally. I work with photographers. I know what men do with a folder of nude pictures at a desk. You are looking at the system panel.”

He did let himself look at her then. Her face was a half foot from his. Her eyes were warm, the warm brown that had read as gold on the video call, and there was no tease in them, only something softer.

“I am trying to be a professional, Summer.”

“I know. I see it.”

Her hand stayed. He did not take it off. He did not cover it with his own either. He let it be.

“Thank you, by the way.” He turned back to the screen because he had to turn somewhere. “For the test records. You have saved me hours. The mannequin photos were clean. The metadata was clean. I ran the model against them last night and it performed better than it did on my own samples. Which is embarrassing, because my samples were of a human being.”

“Your samples were of Vanitha.”

“They were.”

“I saw the measurements you entered.”

“Ah.”

“She has an excellent body, Selvam.”

He did not answer that.

He typed “Summer” on the search box. He clicked to the test-record panel. Summer Test 1. Summer Test 2. Both there. Both still labeled. And under them a third record.

Summer Test 3.

He stopped.

He had not seen it that morning. It had not been there that morning. He had checked the admin at five thirty and there had been two. He clicked it.

The record opened.

The image filled the right monitor, clean, at full resolution, because the admin view did not compress. The white studio backdrop. The pink garter belt at her waist. The nude stockings. The pink lace thong. Her breasts bare at the top of the frame, natural, full, the soft pink of the nipples sharp against her fair skin. Her hair over one shoulder. Her eyes on the lens of the camera that had taken it, which was not him, which had been a photographer in a studio, but the eyes were still coming out of the screen at him.

His mouth went open a small amount.

His hand moved for the trackpad. He was going to close it. He was going to close it fast, the way he should have closed it the first second it had come up, before he had seen the full of the frame.

Her hand on his thigh pressed, small, a half pound. Not hard. Enough to stop him.

“Don’t.”

“Summer.”

“You’re not as stoic as you look, Selvam.”

“I thought this would be a mannequin photo.”

“I know you did.” She was smiling. He could hear it in her voice.

“That’s the fun part.”

He looked at her. He made himself look at her and not at the screen.

“You sent your own photos for my app?”

“I sent it for calibration. The model needs real human data. You said so in the meeting yesterday.”

“Summer.”

“Don’t worry, Selvam. You’re a professional.”

He breathed out. He closed his eyes for one second. He opened them. The image was still on the screen. He had not moved his hand.

“I am a professional,” he said. “I am also a human, Summer.”

“I know.”

“You are beautiful.”

It came out of him before he had decided to say it. He heard it come out. He did not take it back.

Her hand on his thigh moved a small fraction, a soft stroke of her thumb along the cotton, and then it went still again.

“Thank you,” she said. Quiet.

He reached for the trackpad. He closed the window. The image went. The thumbnail stayed in the grid, small now, a square among other squares, and he could live with a square.

“I will not click that one again.”

“You can, if you want.”

“Summer.”

“I’m teasing. Mostly.” She lifted her hand off his thigh finally. She did it slow. She did not pull it away fast the way a person pulled away when they were sorry. She slid it off like she was putting it away for later. “Okay. Seriously. I want to offer something.”

“What.”

“So the final step of the flow is for the boutique to cut and tailor stitch the choli, right?”

“Yes”

“I’m assuming, you and Vanitha already tailored the choli for her with her app measurements?”

“Yes”

“I want to offer to be the second person to get the choli stitched. What do you think?”

“Vanitha will be pleased, before she can stitch the 100 choli she promised her followers. 

She laughed. She slid off the armrest. She went to the window and stood with her back to him and looked out at the hedges in the yard, and her hair was down her back in the morning light, and he turned the chair the small quarter turn back to the screen and he did not look at her back, and he sat for a minute with his hand on the edge of the desk and he breathed.

Selvam imagined Summer in a tight choli hugging her natural full breasts.
Scene 3
They came down the stairs twenty minutes later. Summer first, then Selvam behind her with the laptop under his arm.

Vanitha was on the couch with her legs folded under her, the green end of her pallu across her lap. Ashok was in the armchair with his phone. Latha was at the coffee table with a small plate of the leftover scones, cutting one into four careful pieces the way she cut everything into four careful pieces.

“Progress report.” Summer dropped onto the couch next to Vanitha. She did it easy, familiar, the way a woman dropped onto a couch at a friend’s house. Vanitha liked it. She liked the way Summer had settled in the house in two hours the way some women did not settle in a house in two years.

“Tell me.”

“Ten thousand two hundred. As of the time we left the desk. The pipeline is processing at about three hundred an hour. Selvam and I just walked the training view. The data quality is better than I projected. At this rate, the AI will be ready within days.”

“Days.” Ashok set his phone down. “Not weeks.”

“Days. Maybe a week if we hit an edge case. But honestly, with Vanitha’s audience the variance is tight enough that the model is learning fast. Young women, twenty to twenty-five, similar body compositions, high-quality phone cameras. This is the cleanest training set I have ever built against.”

“My girls are a demographic goldmine, Summer, dear.”

“Your girls are.” Summer laughed. “And they trust you. Which means the photos are unguarded. Which means the model learns the real body, not the pose.”

Latha looked up from her scone. “Akka, what happens when it is ready?”

“When it is ready.” Summer turned to her. “A woman opens the app. She takes one photo. She gets her measurements. She picks a blouse from Vanitha’s line. The app checks the fit. It gets shipped. It fits the first time.”

“That is amazing, akka.”

“It is amazing because Vanitha is amazing.” Summer reached over and squeezed Vanitha’s knee. “Which reminds me. Vanitha. Serious question. What are you planning to do with all the money when your online choli business takes off?”

Vanitha smiled. She had been thinking about this since the upload counter had crossed three thousand yesterday, and she had not said it out loud yet, and she was glad someone had asked.

“I want a boutique.”

“In Chennai?“

“In Chennai first. Then Bangalore. Then Hyderabad. Then a small one in every city a woman like me grew up in, so a girl walks into it at sixteen and sees the saree on the mannequin and knows she can wear it and not just her grandmother.”

“Oh.”

“A boutique where the dressing room has the app on a tablet on the wall. You stand in front of it. It measures you in ten seconds. You pick the blouse you want. They stitch it in the back room and bring it to you while you have tea. You walk out of the store the same afternoon with a saree that fits you like it was made for you because it was.”

“That’s amazing!” Summer said and continued. “You know with the app, you can automate the drop-ship process. You know what that means right, Vanitha?”

“What dear?”

“Instead of boutiques, you open your design studio, where all you do is let your creativity flow and work on your designs. The app will take care of the selling, measuring & shipping.” 

“OMG, I didn’t even think of that, it’s all because mama‘S idea.”

“Vanitha, I would love to help you test the finished products.” 

Summer was still on the knee-squeeze. “Fit testing. Real-world. I’ve got the lingerie-model eye for what dbangs well. And I am your demographic age-wise.”

“You will be the face of my American line.”

“Vanitha, stop, you are going to make me cry before lunch.”

Selvam cleared his throat.

He was standing in the doorway with the laptop still under his arm. He had not sat down. Vanitha had noticed he had not sat down.

“Summer has already sent her measurements.” Selvam in a low voice.

His voice came out almost right. Almost. There was a small half beat at the end of the sentence that should not have been there, and the word measurements sat on the end of it with a small weight.

Vanitha turned her head.

She did not mean to turn her head the way she turned it. She meant to turn it in the normal way a woman turned her head when a man in her family said something about a woman. It came out a different way. It came out with a small lift of her eyebrow and a small widening of her eye and a small tilt of her chin, and it was the look she gave Selvam across a room when she wanted to ask a question she could not ask in front of Ashok.

Her eye asked it.

Mama. You saw what, exactly.

Selvam’s mouth went a little tight at the corner. He did not look away from her. He held the look. His own eye did not answer her question in words. It answered it in a small flinch, a thing that moved at the edge of his lid, a thing only she would see because she had been watching his eye for ten months.

She smiled, small, into her pallu.

Vanitha bit her lip surpassing her smile looking at Selvam with her non-verbal questios.. you saw Summer’s breast photos?

“Well.” Ashok stood up from the armchair. He was stretching, his arms over his head, and he had not seen the look because he had been looking at his phone. “This calls for a celebration.”

“Kanna?“ She called Ashok without taking her eyes off Selvam.

“Dinner. Tonight. A good one. The four of us. The five of us.” He corrected himself, pointing at Latha, who had gone pink. “Five. Somewhere nice. My treat. We will go into the city. I will make a reservation.”

“Ashok, I don’t need a dinner.” Summer was laughing. “I’ve already eaten.”

“My wife is about to build an empire, appa’s app is about to go live, and you are the person who made it go. You are getting a dinner.”

“Okay. Yes. I’m getting a dinner.”

Ashok went to the kitchen for his phone charger. Latha stood, quiet, and carried the scone plate after him. Summer was pulling out her own phone to check her calendar for the lingerie appointment she had promised on Thursday.

Vanitha did not move.

She kept her eyes on Selvam in the doorway. He had not moved either. The laptop was still under his arm. His other hand was at his side and the fingers of it were curled a small amount, the way they curled when he was thinking about something and did not want to show he was thinking about something.

She let her eye ask him one more time.

Mama. She did not mean to, did she.

His eye answered.

She did. She did on purpose.

Vanitha’s mouth went up at the corner, a half inch, and she turned her face back to Summer on the couch, and she asked Summer something about the restaurant, and Summer answered, and the morning went on.

But the look sat between them in the room, in the air above the coffee table, and neither of them picked it up, and neither of them put it down.

The fact that Selvam has seen Summer’s breasts and Summer is becoming a good friend made her feel in ways.

[masti.bhai]

Erotic.
Corruption of the mind excites folks. Vanitha should introduce Latha to the magnificent cock of Selvam even against her wishes., probably with Ashok's knowledge

[X_writer]

Don't add third person between Vanitha and Selvam

Story should progress around their sexual intercourse only

[adams_masala]

Chapter 68: Girls Lingerie Shopping

Scene 1

It was Thursday morning. Vanitha stood at the counter with her hand at her throat and the kettle going behind her on the stove.

Latha was in the guest bath at the end of the hall doing her Thursday cleaning, the way she did her Thursday cleaning, slow and thorough and always starting with the bathrooms. Selvam had gone out at five thirty in his shorts and the grey running shirt. He had taken the trail behind the house. He would not be back for another twenty minutes.

It was just her and Ashok in the kitchen.

She poured the coffee. She brought it to him.

“Kanna.”

“Mm.” He did not look up.

She set the cup down. She did not go back to the counter. She stood at his shoulder with her hand at her throat and she made herself say it.

“Kanna, I have to tell you something.”

“What, baby.” He looked up now. His eyes were soft the way they were soft in the morning before he had put his work face on.

“Your thali. Your chain. The one you tied. I... I cannot find it.”

His brow did the small line.

“Since when, baby.”

“Since Sunday.” She had decided to say Sunday because Sunday was the day he had seen her in his mother’s thali in their bed and had chosen not to ask. “I took it off Saturday night. I had wanted to try amma’s chain on. To see how it sat. I put it on the bedside table. I think.”

“You think.”

“I cannot find it on the table now, kanna. I have looked. I looked under the lamp. Under the books. In the drawer. On the floor. I think.” She made her voice small. She was not faking the small. The small was real. “I think it might have fallen in the trash. The bin was right there. Latha emptied it Sunday morning before I went looking.”

Ashok looked at her.

He looked at her for one long breath, and she watched his eye go to the gold at her throat, and she watched it go away, and she watched it come back to her face.

“Baby.” He reached up and he took her wrist where her hand was at the gold. He pulled her hand down off her throat, gentle, and he held it in his own. “It is okay.”

“Kanna, it was your thali. The one you tied.”

“Baby. It is okay.”

“I should have been more careful with it. I was tired Saturday. I had been on my feet in the studio. I should not have taken it off.”

“Vanitha.” He squeezed her wrist. “Listen to me, baby. The thali is a chain. It is a beautiful chain. It is not the marriage. Yes?”

“Yes.”

“The marriage is here.” He touched her wrist with his thumb where the small bone was. “The marriage is in this house. The marriage is in our bed. The marriage is in the way you make my coffee in the morning and the way I park the car at night. A chain is gold. Gold is replaceable.”

“Kanna.”

“And besides.” He smiled. His eyes went to her throat again, and this time he let them rest there. “You are wearing amma’s. Which is what amma would have wanted. Amma loved you, baby. She loved you the day appa told her on the phone that I was getting married to a girl from Chennai. She would be very happy you have hers on.”

Vanitha’s eyes went hot.

She did not blink. If she blinked the wet would come down and he would think it was about the thali, and it was about the thali, and it was not about the thali, and she did not know how to have either of those conversations with him at seven in the morning on a Thursday with the coffee getting cold between them.

“Kanna.” Her voice came out thick. “Are you sure.”

“I am sure, baby.”

“I will look more for it. I will. Latha and I will go through the bin in the garage. Maybe it did not get to the truck yet.”

“If you find it, you find it. If you do not, you do not.” He let her wrist go. He picked up the coffee. He took a small sip. “Wear amma’s. It looks good on you. The leaf sits right.”

She put her hand back at her throat. The leaf sat right. She knew it sat right. Selvam had told her it sat right when he had put it on her on Saturday while his cock was in front of her face, his palm flat over the pendant for a half second to settle it against her sternum, and she had felt the warmth of his palm through the cool of the gold and she had not breathed.

She nodded. She did not trust her voice.

“Come.” Ashok patted the chair next to him. “Sit. Eat something. You are pale.”

Upstairs the vacuum cut off. The house went quiet for one second before it started up again in a different room, the bedroom this time, the small drone moving through the ceiling toward the back of the house where her bedroom was.

Ashok went back to his laptop.

He scrolled. He took another sip of coffee. He did not look at her again. He had decided what he had decided about the chain and he had moved on the way he moved on from things, clean, and she sat next to him with her hand at her throat on the wrong gold and felt the small warm relief of his kindness pool in her chest next to the small cold weight of what she had not told him.

The kettle on the stove finished its whistle and clicked off on its own.

Scene 2

At 11:00am the knock came.

It was not a doorbell knock. It was a knock, a small bright rhythm of knuckles on the wood, three quick and two slow, the kind of knock a friend did when she knew the friend was on the other side waiting for her.

Vanitha was already at the door. She’d changed twice and finally settled on a high-waisted coral mini skirt that hugged her hips and ended mid-thigh, showing off her sculpted legs. She wore a simple white tank top, tucked in to accentuate her waist, and slipped on white sneakers. Her hair fell loose and glossy down her back, a delicate gold chain glinting at her throat as she grabbed her woven bag, effortless, sexy, and perfectly Californian.

She opened the door.

Summer was on the step in a short denim skirt and a white tank and a pair of gold hoops, her hair down in the long waves, and she had sunglasses pushed up on her head and a smile on her face that was already laughing before either of them had said anything.

“You are here.”

“I am here.”

They did not hug like two grown women hugged. They hugged like two girls who had not seen each other in a summer. Vanitha went up on her toes and Summer went down a half inch and their arms went around each other and they squeezed, tight, and then Summer did a small bounce on her heels and Vanitha bounced with her, and Summer grabbed both of her hands and they turned a half circle on the step like two cheerleaders in a sideline cheer and they were laughing before Vanitha had remembered to close the door behind them.

“Oh my god.”

“I know.”

“I have been looking forward to this since Sunday, dear.”

“I have been looking forward to this since you walked out the door on Sunday, Summer.”

Latha appeared in the hallway behind them with a simple dusty-blue sleeveless sundress that skimmed her knees, her favorite white sneakers on her feet. Her braid was fresh and neat, and she’d tucked a tiny white daisy behind her ear, a California touch she’d picked up from the backyard that morning. The thin gold chain her amma had sent from the village was the only thing that didn’t match the new world around her, but she wore it proudly.

“Latha. Come.” Summer opened one arm. She did not drop Vanitha’s hand. “Come here.”

Latha came. She came slow, shy. She let Summer pull her into the half circle of the arm, and Summer squeezed her shoulder once and then let her go.

“You look pretty, Latha.”

“Thank you, Summer.”

“Did you eat?”

“I ate.”

“Good. Because I’m going to keep you out until four and I do not feed small women between meals.”

Latha’s mouth went up at the corner. She did not laugh out loud. The corner of her mouth did the laughing for her.

“Vanitha, I told Selvam we would be back by four.” Summer turned. “Is he at the desk?”

“He is at the desk.”

“Tell him I said not to look at the admin console while we are gone.”

Vanitha’s eyes went up a small amount at that, and Summer saw it, and Summer grinned, small, at her, and Vanitha grinned back, small, and neither of them said the thing they were both saying with the grin.

“Come on, girls. Car is in the drive.”

They went.

Vanitha pulled the door shut behind her. She did not call up the stairs to Selvam. He had heard the knock. He had heard the laugh. He would know what the laugh was. He would be at the desk in the guest room and he would not come down, because he did not come down when she was leaving with her friends, and this had become the rhythm of the house in four days.

Summer’s car sat in the drive, a gleaming white Range Rover with tinted windows and polished chrome rims, the kind of SUV that turned heads in any California suburb.

The interior was all cream leather and subtle wood accents, smelling faintly of expensive perfume and the sun-warmed seats. Summer swung open the driver’s door with easy confidence, sunglasses pushed up on her head and a bright, mischievous smile on her lips.

“Vanitha, front.”

“Latha in the back?”

“Latha in the back. Latha, I’m sorry… the back seat is basically a velvet throne, you’ll love it.”

Latha slid in, settling into the plush comfort, while Vanitha took her place up front, crossing her bare legs and smoothing her mini skirt. Summer tapped a button and the dash display came alive with music, the Range Rover humming quietly beneath them… a perfect chariot for a girls’ day out.

The song came on loud. A woman singing in English, fast, over a beat that made Vanitha’s hip want to move on its own.

“Okay.” Summer pulled out of the drive. Her one hand was on the wheel, loose, her other hand on the gearshift, the way Selvam’s hand sat on his gearshift when he drove, and Vanitha noticed that she noticed. “Latha. You have never been to a lingerie boutique?”

“No, Summer.”

“Okay. First thing. When we walk in, there is a woman at the front. She will offer us champagne. Let’s enjoy!.”

They all laughed.

“Second thing. They take us to a private room. It has a couch. It has a mirror. It has a curtain instead of a door.”

“Same idea. So, Latha, listen. The woman at the store will ask what you are looking for. You do not have to know. I do not know. We are going to try on things. Everything. Silk. Lace. Satin. Push-up. Bralette. You are going to put things on that you have never put on, and you are going to look at yourself in a mirror, and you are going to feel a thing in your chest, and that thing is allowed, and that thing is the point.”

Latha was quiet for a second in the back seat.

“Akka,” she said, to Vanitha. “Is that really how it is?”

“It is really how it is, da.” Vanitha turned her head over her shoulder. “And we have mama’s app, too. We will take the photos in the changing room. We will run it. We will see if the app gives us the right size.”

“In the changing room?”

“Why not, da. The wall is plain. The light is good. It is the perfect place to test it.”

“And the boutique will know, akka?”

“We will tell them, da. Summer wants to show them the app.”

“I want to show them the app,” Summer said. “If this boutique likes the app, we have a partner. If this boutique likes the app, a hundred boutiques like it.”

She pulled onto the freeway ramp. She put her foot down. The suv went up the on-ramp in a clean small rush.

Scene 3

The boutique sat on a corner in the city on a street with a bakery on one side and a small florist on the other. The sign on the door was gold on black, small, one word, the name of the shop in a hand-lettered type that did not shout.

Summer parked the SUV in a spot on the street that no one else had taken because no one else could have parallel-parked a car into it. She did it in one pull. She killed the engine. She took her sunglasses off and hooked them in the collar of her tank.

“Girls.”

“Girls,” Vanitha said.

Latha climbed out of the back. She smoothed her sundress down with both hands. She looked at the door of the shop. She looked at the door the way a person looked at the door of a temple.

Summer pushed the door open.

Inside was cool. The air conditioning ran soft and the air smelled of something that was not perfume and was not a candle and was somewhere between the two, a small clean warm smell, vanilla maybe, something under it. The walls were a pale cream. 

Mirrors along the left wall in gold frames. The racks were not crowded. Each piece hung with space around it the way art hung with space around it in a good gallery.

A woman came from the back.

She was tall and thin in a long black dress and her hair was pulled back and her smile went up one cheek first before it went up the other.

“Summer.”

“Elena.”

“You brought friends.”

“I brought the best friends. Elena, this is Vanitha. Vanitha runs a saree line out of Chennai. Two million followers. She is the one I told you about on the phone.”

“Vanitha.” Elena put both her hands out. Vanitha took them. “I have watched your reels since yesterday. My daughter showed them to me. She said, mama, this is who is coming. I said, okay, we are doing the full appointment.”

“Thank you, Elena.”

“And this is Latha.” Summer put her hand on the small of Latha’s back. “Latha is family. First time in a shop like this. Be gentle with her.”

“I am always gentle, Summer, you know this.”

Elena walked them through the front room. She pushed aside a heavy cream curtain at the back of the shop and beyond it sat the private room.

Vanitha stopped for a small breath on the entrance.

The room was a square. A long velvet couch in deep green along one wall. A low gold table in front of it. Three mirrors across the opposite wall, tall, floor to ceiling, angled the small amount that meant you could stand in front of the middle one and see your own back in the ones on either side. A small chandelier, not big, not showy, a small clean thing of glass and gold. The light was the kind of light a woman looked good in. The woman who had built this room had known exactly what a woman needed the light to do.

“Sit, girls.”

They sat. The velvet was soft under Vanitha’s palm. Latha sat on the edge of the couch with her knees together and her hands in her lap.

Elena was back in a minute with a silver tray. Three flutes of champagne.

“Oh.” Latha looked up. “It’s ok ma, you can drink.”

“Summer.” Latha turned.

They picked up her flute. “To the girls.”

“To the girls.”

They clinked. Latha clinked her flute against the two flutes and she did not spill a drop, and she smiled, small, proud, down at her own hand.

“Elena.” Summer set her flute down. “Before we start. I want to show you something.”

She opened her phone.

“This is the app we built. The measurement app. The one I told you about at the party in May. It is live now. It runs. We want to use it in this room today. We want to measure all three of us from a single photo and see how close it gets.”

Elena’s eyes went sharp the way a shopkeeper’s eyes went sharp when a person said a thing that might be money. “Show me.”

Summer showed her.

She walked her through the flow on her own phone. The cream sign-up page. The instructions. The photo upload. The measurement fields. Elena watched with her arms folded. She did not interrupt. She asked one question at the end, and the question was the right question.

“Who owns it.”

“The IP belongs to my boss.” Summer said it clean. “Selvam Chandran. Vanitha’s father-in-law. He came up with it. He built the prototype. I build the infrastructure. The patent is in his name.”

“Her boss?“ Latha turned her head.

“He is my boss now, Latha.” Summer smiled. “He hired me. He pays me. He is my boss.”

“Selvam is the boss.” Elena said it slow. She was tasting it.

“Okay. I want to see it in action. Do the photo. I will watch.”

They did it.

Summer stood against the cream wall at the end of the room. She was still in the tank and the skirt. 

She began to pull her skirt down. 

She hooked her thumbs in the waistband. She pulled.
Vanitha watched. She could not not watch. The denim was tight at the hip, tighter than Vanitha had clocked when Summer had walked in the door, and the skirt came down the first two inches clean and then it stopped.
It stopped at the top of Summer’s ass.
Summer laughed, one small breath of it, and she bent forward a half inch and she worked the waistband with both thumbs, and the denim gave one slow inch and stuck again. The fabric was caught on the full round of her, the way tight denim caught on a woman who had the shape Summer had, and Vanitha felt her own mouth go open a small amount on the couch and she closed it.
“This skirt, I swear.”
“Take your time, dear.” Vanitha said
“One second, girls.”
Summer hooked her thumbs deeper. She pushed. The denim rolled down over the curve, slow, an inch, another inch, and then the full round of her ass came out from under the hem like a moon coming out from under a cloud, round and full and the fair skin of her catching the light from the chandelier. She was not wearing a thong under the skirt. She was wearing a small pair of nude cotton briefs that sat high on her hip and low at the back, and the cotton had rolled a half inch down with the denim and she had not noticed, or she had noticed and she did not care.
Vanitha’s breath went out of her.
She did not mean for it to go out of her. She had not been holding it. It went out on its own, small, through her nose, and she reached for her champagne to give her hand something to do.
Latha was sitting next to her on the velvet. Latha had not moved. Latha’s eyes were on Summer’s back and Latha’s mouth had gone open the way a child’s mouth went open at a thing a child had not known was in the world.
“Akka,” Latha whispered. She did not turn her head to say it. She said it to the air between her and Vanitha. “Akka, her skin.”
“I know, da.”
“It is so fair.”
“I know, da.”
Summer kicked the skirt off her ankle. She stood in the tank and the thong and the bare legs and the morning light from the window caught the back of her thighs and Vanitha saw, clean, the small pink line at the top of each thigh where the denim had pressed the skin for an hour in the car.
Summer pulled the tank up over her head.

She was in the bra and thong she had worn under them, a matching set in a soft nude, simple, and she stood against the wall with her arms a half inch off her waist and her feet hip-width. Vanitha took the photo on Summer’s phone.

The app ran. Eleven seconds. The stick figure came up. The numbers ran down the side.

Elena leaned in.

“Bust thirty-four point two. Waist twenty-three point eight. Hip thirty-five point nine. Shoulder sixteen point one.”

“That is me.” Summer looked at the numbers. “That is me to the tenth.”

“Within a tenth of an inch,” Elena said, quiet. “On one photo.”

“On one photo, Elena.”

Elena did not say anything for a breath.

Then she pulled a card out of a small pocket at the side of her dress. She held it out to Summer.

“Summer. My boss. The owner of this chain. She has four more shops. Two in New York. One in Miami. One in Dallas. She has been asking me for six months for a tool that will let a woman try on at home and know her size before the package ships. She will want to see this. Tonight. She is in New York until Sunday. I will call her tonight.”

“Please do.”

“This card. It has her email. You send the deck to her. You tell her the IP is with Selvam. You tell her she will deal with him. She will understand.”

Summer took the card. She read it. She slid it into the small gold purse she had brought.

“Elena, thank you.”

“Thank me after my boss signs. Now. Champagne. And clothes.” Elena clapped her hands once, small. She turned to the curtain at the back of the room. “I will bring pieces. I know your sizes now. I will bring the good ones.”

She was gone through the curtain.

Vanitha sat back on the green velvet. Her flute was cold in her hand. Summer was still standing in the middle of the room in the nude bra and thong, her card in her small gold purse, her eyes on Vanitha, and she smiled, slow, the way a woman smiled when a thing had just gone exactly the way she had planned it to go.

“Summer.”

“I know.”

“You did that.”

“We did that.”

Latha sat forward on the couch.

“Akka, did that shop lady just say mama is going to have shops in New York?”

“She said maybe, da.”

“Oh my god, akka.”

“I know, da.”
Scene 4

Elena came back with her arms full.

She laid the pieces on the low gold table. She laid them out the way a jeweler laid out stones, each one with space around it so the eye could see what it was. A deep red lace set, the cups cut low and the thong a small triangle with a single gold clasp at the hip. A cream silk bralette with a thin ribbon tie at the front. A black satin set with garters that hung loose off the belt. A pale blue with white lace trim. A soft pink that looked like the inside of a shell.

“Summer, these are for you, Latha these are for you, and Vanitha these are for you. I have more in the back if nothing here works. I will be outside the curtain. Call for me.”

She went.

Summer was already moving. She unclasped her nude bra off and she took it off one clean lift, and she dropped it on the couch, and she stood in the middle of the room bare breasted from the waist up in the cream light.

Vanitha looked.

She did not mean to look the way she looked. She was a woman, and she had seen other women’s bodies, in green rooms at pageants and in the private rooms at sari fittings, and she knew how to not-look in the way a woman knew how to not-look at another woman. She looked anyway.

Summer’s breasts were the breasts a sculptor would have tried to make. Full. Round at the bottom, soft at the sides. The skin at the top of them was paler than the skin of her shoulders because the skin of her shoulders had seen the sun and the skin of her breasts had not. The nipples were a soft clean pink, the pink of the inside of a shell, small and set high on the curve the way nipples sat on young women who had not had children. The skin around them was smooth. No mark. No line.

Nordic, Vanitha thought. She thought the word because it was a word she had read somewhere about a woman who looked like Summer, and it fit.

She smiled, small, at the inside of her own flute.

Mama, she thought. She let herself think it because no one could hear her think. Mama. You have seen this on the screen. In the admin console. In the full resolution. Late at night, maybe. Or early in the morning in the guest room before Latha has come down. You have sat at the desk and you have looked at this. This is what you saw.

Something in her chest pulled, a small warm pull, and she did not know yet which woman she was pulling toward.

“Vanitha.” Summer turned. She did not cover herself. She did not try. She was a woman who had been naked in front of cameras for a living for five years and she had long since stopped doing the small covering dance. “You. Red. Definitely red. With your skin. Get in it.”

“Summer.”

“Get in it.”

Vanitha unwrapped pulled her skirt down and her ass caught the skirt as well. 

She got the skirt over the full of her hip and the fabric stuck on the round of her ass the same way Summer’s had stuck, and she laughed, small, at herself, and she pushed, and the skirt rolled the last inch and fell at her ankles in a small coral pool. She stepped out of it with one foot and then the other and she left it where it was.
Her panties were a soft black lace. She had put them on in the morning without thinking about them and now they were the only thing she had on below the waist and she was aware of them in a way she had not been aware of them at seven in the morning in her own kitchen.
She reached for the hem of the tank.
She pulled it up. She pulled it slow. She did not mean to pull it slow. Her hands went slow on their own. The white cotton came up over her navel and the small warm air of the room went against her belly and she felt the small gold chain at her throat shift a quarter inch against her skin when she lifted her arms. She took off her tank.

She stood in her own plain black bra and matching panties.

Summer whistled, low. “Okay.”

“Stop it, Summer.”

“Vanitha. I am not stopping.” Summer came forward. She picked up the red set from the table and held it out to her. “I have been looking at your reels for four days. I have been telling myself I was looking at them for market research. I have not been looking at them for market research. I have been looking at them because you are the most beautiful woman I have met in person and I wanted to see if the camera was lying. It is not lying.”

Vanitha felt the heat come up her throat.

She did not let it show. She took the red set. She turned her back. She unhooked her own bra. The plain one fell. She held the red one up and she worked the clasp at the back, and then she bent forward and shook her breasts into the cups the way a woman shook her breasts into a new bra, and she straightened, and she turned around.

Summer looked.

Summer did not look the way a man looked. Summer looked the way another woman looked when she was deciding if a thing worked on the body it was on, and her eyes went down from the top of Vanitha’s breasts to where the red lace met the soft of her belly, and they went back up, and she said, “Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes. Vanitha. Come to the mirror.”

Vanitha went to the mirror.

The red lace sat low on her chest. It held her up and a small half inch of the top of each breast rose above the cup, and the dark red was almost black against her fair skin, and her waist below was narrow, and her hip was round, and the thong sat where the thong sat, and the gold of the chain at her throat, Selvam’s chain, his athai’s chain, the leaf pendant, the whole of it, caught the light from the chandelier and lay bright against her skin.

Summer came up behind her.

Summer was still in the nude panties and nothing else. Her breasts were a soft weight against Vanitha’s bare back for a half second before Summer stepped a small half-step to the side and stood next to her at the mirror, and they were shoulder to shoulder there, and Vanitha watched their two reflections, and she had never stood next to a woman like this in her life.

“Okay.” Summer said it soft. “Latha. Your turn.”

Latha had been on the couch the whole time. Her eyes were wide over the rim of her champagne glass. Her cheeks were pink.

“Summer, I...”

“Pale blue, Latha. The one with the lace. Come here.”

Latha stood. She came. She held the set in both hands the way Latha held everything in both hands. She looked at Vanitha.

“Akka, I...”

“Kanna. Put it on. We are all here. It is only us.”

Latha turned. She turned her back to both of them in the small way she turned her back, which was not a turning away so much as a giving of herself a small wall. She unhooked her sundress at the side. She pulled it off over her head. Her back was narrow and her skin was a warm gold and the braid lay down the middle of it, and her own plain white bra sat high on her back with the elastic new and stiff.

She unhooked it.

She put the blue on. She worked the clasp. She turned.

Vanitha breathed in.

Latha had a body. Vanitha had known she had a body. She had known it from the way her sarees fit her in the kitchen, and she had known it from the way Selvam had once looked past her, not at her, in a way Vanitha had filed, and she had known it. She had not known the full of it. The blue lace sat across a chest that was smaller than Summer’s and smaller than Vanitha’s, but the shape of it was a shape, firm, high, the nipples showing a dark shadow under the lace, the whole of it round and young and sitting up on its own without help.

“Latha, thirty-two C.” Summer had the label in her hand. “The app said thirty-two C. You have been wearing what.”

“Thirty-four B, Summer.”

“Throw that thirty-four B away.”

Latha laughed, small, and her hand came up to her mouth.

Latha’s breasts looked even better with the right size bra. She thought her cup size was B and bra size was 34 but it was 32-C with a bigger cup size and smaller frame. This made her look even hotter.

“The app, girls.” Summer held her phone up. “Three photos. Three numbers. Three perfect fits. I am going to email Selvam right now and I am going to tell him he is a genius.”

“Send it, Summer.” Vanitha said it.

She said it watching the three of them in the mirror, three women in three colors, Summer in nude, herself in red, Latha in blue, and she felt the small warm thing in her chest that she had not felt since before her pageant days when she had still had friends in Chennai who were not in the business of beauty.

Most of the women in her life had looked at her the way women looked at a thing they also wanted and could not have. Summer was not looking at her that way. Summer had the body of a lingerie model and the brain of an engineer and she had told Vanitha she was the most beautiful woman she had met in person and had not flinched saying it. Not to compete. Not to hollow her. To say it. The way a woman said a thing that was true.

Vanitha caught her own eye in the mirror.

She smiled at herself in the red lace, and the smile was a real one. Summer is the first woman friend she had who didn’t envy her but appreciated her beauty.


The bags went in the back. Summer closed the hatch with a small push. Vanitha was already in the passenger seat with her feet up on the dash and Latha had climbed into the back with her shopping on the seat next to her and her fingers on the handle of the bag the way a child’s fingers went on the handle of a toy she did not want to let go of.

Summer got in. She started the car. The dash came up. The AC came on cool.

“Home?“

“Home, Summer.” Vanitha stretched her arms up over her head. The tank rode up two inches on her belly. “I am going to nap for a week.”

“You bought four sets. You do not get to nap.”

“I am going to nap in the red one.”

Latha laughed in the back. It was the small laugh she had been laughing all afternoon, the one that had been building in her since she had put on the blue set in front of the mirror.

Summer pulled out of the spot. She took the corner slow. She got them on the freeway ramp heading south and she put her foot down and the SUV settled into the left lane at seventy-five.

Her phone chimed on the console.

She glanced down. A single line notification slid across the top of the screen in the small grey font the admin module used.

_Selvam viewed summer_lingerie_shoot_full_frontal1.jpg at 4:34pm.

Her pulse did a small quick thing.

She looked back at the road. She kept both hands on the wheel. She did not reach for the phone. She did not turn it face down either. She let it sit there on the console with the notification visible against the dark screen, and she felt the small warm flush come up her throat and she kept her face flat.

“Summer.” Vanitha’s voice was soft next to her. Vanitha’s eyes were closed against the headrest. “Did you mean what you said to Elena.”

“About what.”

“About mama being the boss.”

“I meant it, dear.”

“Mm.” Vanitha smiled, small, with her eyes still closed. “He will not know what to do with that.”

“He will figure it out.”

“He will.”

In the back Latha was scrolling her phone. Summer could hear the small tap of her thumb on the glass, and the small soft sound Latha made under her breath when she saw a thing she liked, the small hmm that was almost not a sound at all.

The phone on the console chimed.

_Selvam viewed summer_lingerie_shoot_full_frontal1.jpg at 4:36pm.

Summer read it. She read the time first, and then the file name, and then she read the time again. Two minutes. He had looked at the same image two minutes after the first time.

She knew the admin dashboard. She had built the admin dashboard. On the screen in front of him there were ten thousand one hundred and twelve records now. Maybe eleven thousand. The counter had moved while they were at the boutique. Thousands of young women against bedroom walls. Thousands of nudes. He had opened the dashboard, and he had not scrolled the grid, and he had not opened any of the new ones.

He had opened hers.

He had looked. He had closed it. He had sat there. He had opened it again.

Summer felt her mouth go up at one corner. She made it go back down.

“What are you smiling at?” Vanitha had opened her eyes.

“Nothing, dear.”

“You are smiling.”

“I am thinking about the look on Elena’s face when the app said thirty-four two.”

“Mm. That was a good face.”

Vanitha closed her eyes again.

Summer drove. She passed a truck on the right because there was an opening. She did not drive faster than she had been driving. She kept her foot steady on the pedal. She thought about the café, which was a thing she had thought about every day for four days. She thought about the way his eyes had gone to the napkin and stayed there when her cardigan had parted. She thought about the way his eyes had gone to her shoulder on the call, and away, clean, one half second of looking and done.

Two for two. And now this.

Two looks in public where he had not let himself. And then in the dark of his desk, alone, the door closed, he had clicked her photo twice in the space of four minutes.

Summer felt the small warm pull low in her belly she had felt at the café. She had told herself at the café that it was the jet lag and the red wine at lunch. She was telling herself now it was the champagne at the boutique and the long afternoon.

She was not telling herself the truth.

The truth was she had sent the photo on purpose. She had sat on her bed at midnight on Sunday and she had hit submit and she had told herself for calibration and she had known what it was. She had wanted him to see it. She had wanted him to be alone in a room with it. She had wanted to know what a disciplined man did when a young lingerie model put herself on his desk.

Now she knew.

She knew because her phone kept chiming.

The phone chimed.

_Selvam viewed summer_lingerie_shoot_full_frontal1.jpg at 4:38pm.

Summer bit her lip. She bit it on the inside so her face would not do anything on the outside. Her teeth closed on the soft and she held it for a breath and she let it go. Two minutes again. He was on a clock. He was opening it, closing it, sitting, opening it again. A man who could not look at her collarbone in a café was at his desk in his son’s house looking at the full of her, three minutes at a stretch, and coming back for more.

“Summer.” Latha’s voice from the back. “Can I show Summer the picture I took in the mirror?”

“Show me at the next light, dear.”

“Okay, Summer.”

Summer reached for the phone. She did not unlock it. She turned it face down on her thigh, the screen against the warm skin above her knee where the denim had pushed up in the seat. 

The chimes would still come. She would feel the small buzz against her leg. She could not see the screen from there, but she did not need to see the screen. She could count.

She kept driving. She kept her eyes on the road. She let the Range Rover eat the miles south toward Los Gatos and she felt the warm weight of the phone on her thigh and she waited for the next buzz.

Vanitha was asleep in the seat next to her. The small gold chain at her throat had slipped a quarter inch down her collarbone. The leaf pendant sat on the bone there, bright against her skin.

Latha was quiet in the back. The music played soft.

Summer thought about the house they were driving toward. The guest room at the end of the hall. The desk by the window. The laptop. The man at the desk. The door closed.

She thought about what she would wear when she walked in.

She smiled, small, at the road.

The phone buzzed again between her thighs, she didn’t have to look this time. It’s as if she felt Selvam’s starring at her breasts through her thighs. She bit her lips and controlled her smile.

Summer took the exit to Los Gatos. The off-ramp curved right and she curved with it and she slowed at the light at the bottom.

Vanitha stirred in the seat.

“Are we home?”

[mulaikallan]

Let Ashok live like a pet/dog in the house. Doing some choes. Accept everything his dad and ex wife says. He is not man of the house anymore.

[Slayer@@]

Great update... But the story did not progress that much.. But overall awasome story

[xbiilove]

Excellent update

None of them has the guilt of cheating others

[Thalaidhoni]

Too much of business is bit boring. Hope you agree.

[adams_masala]

Chapter 69: Selvam’s Lingering Looks

Scene 1

Summer stopped at the gas station at the edge of Los Gatos.

She did not need to stop. The tank had a quarter in it still, enough for the rest of the week. She took the exit anyway. She pulled up to a pump on the far side, the side away from the small shop, and she killed the engine and she sat for one breath with her hands on the wheel.

“Are we home?” Vanitha said it again, soft.

“Almost, dear. I need gas.”

“Mm.” Vanitha did not open her eyes. Her head stayed back against the rest. “Take your time.”

Latha was asleep in the back now too. Summer could see her in the mirror, small, curled, her braid across her shoulder, her bags on the seat next to her.

Summer got out.

She closed the door slow. She walked around to the pump. She picked up the nozzle and she swiped the card and she slotted the nozzle in and she started the flow, and then she turned her back to the SUV and she leaned against the side panel with her hip and she took the phone out of her pocket.

The lock screen was full.

Seven notifications. All from the admin service. All the same file name. She unlocked the phone with her thumb and she scrolled them slow, top to bottom.

_Selvam viewed summer_lingerie_shoot_fullfrontal1.jpg at 4:41pm.

_Selvam viewed summer_lingerie_shoot_fullfrontal1.jpg at 4:46pm.

_Selvam viewed summer_lingerie_shoot_fullfrontal1.jpg at 4:49pm.

_Selvam viewed summer_lingerie_shoot_fullfrontal1.jpg at 4:53pm.

_Selvam viewed summer_lingerie_shoot_fullfrontal1.jpg at 4:57pm.

_Selvam viewed summer_lingerie_shoot_fullfrontal1.jpg at 5:02pm.

_Selvam viewed summer_lingerie_shoot_fullfrontal1.jpg at 5:06pm.

Summer read the times. She read them the way a person read a receipt, line by line, the small number at the end of each. Five minutes. Three minutes. Four minutes. Five. He had been at the desk for half an hour. He had not scrolled away from her picture.

Her mouth went up at the corner. She made it go back down.

She scrolled up.

A text thread sat above the notifications. The name at the top of it was Selvam Chandran. The thread had a small blue dot next to it.

She tapped it.

The thread opened. She saw the drafts first, the small grey bubbles that were not sent, the typing indicator that had started and stopped and started again. Then under the drafts the actual messages, the ones he had finished and sent.

Hi Summer.

I need to tell you something.

Then a gap. Three minutes by the timestamp. Then:

I looked at your picture again.

Another gap. A longer one. Then the next message came in two parts, the way messages came from a man who had typed them out, erased them, typed them again.

Not for research purposes.

I need to apologize.

Then a fourth message.

Please remove my access to the privacy section of the admin. I don’t think I can trust myself.

Summer read it twice.

She stood at the pump with the nozzle ticking over next to her hip and she read the four lines twice and she felt the small warm thing come up her chest, the one she had been feeling since the café, the one she had been pretending was jet lag and champagne and the long afternoon, and she let it come up this time. She did not push it back down.

She smiled. Not the small smile. The full one. The one she did not let other people see when other people were looking at her.

He had typed it. He had erased it. He had typed it again. He had written the word apologize, which no man at her office had written to her, and no photographer, and no man at a bar, and no man she had been to bed with in the last two years.

He had apologized for looking.

She thought, for a second, about the way he had pulled her chair out. About the napkin. About the way his eyes had gone to the system panel on the left screen when the grid of thumbnails had come up on the right. About the small careful way he had closed her Test 3 on Sunday morning in the guest room with her hand on his thigh.

This was a man who knew what he was doing. And what he was doing was telling her.

She tapped the reply field.

She did not think about what to type. She typed it the way a thing came out when a person did not think. Short. Her thumbs did it.

you are allowed to look selvam

She looked at it for one breath.

She did not edit it. She did not put a period at the end. She did not capitalize the S. She pressed send.

The message went. The small blue bubble slid into place under his four grey ones. She watched the delivered indicator come up under it and she watched the read indicator come up under that, inside of three seconds, and then the small typing indicator came on and stayed on for a breath, and then it went off, and nothing came, and then it came on again.

She waited.

The typing indicator went off a second time. Nothing came.

Summer slid the phone into her back pocket. She did not need the reply right now. She had sent the thing she had sent and she knew what she had sent and she knew he was at his desk in the guest room looking at the small three dots the way she was looking at them here at the pump, and the not-coming of the message was its own message.

The pump clicked off behind her.

She pulled the nozzle out. She holstered it. She screwed the cap back on. She wiped her hands on the small paper towel by the pump and she dropped it in the trash and she got back in the SUV.

Vanitha stirred when the door closed.

“Home now, dear.” Summer started the engine.

“Mm.”

She pulled out onto the road. The light at the intersection was green. She took it. The SUV went up the small hill toward Ashok’s neighborhood and the oaks over the road closed over them and the light went dappled through the leaves.

She pulled into the driveway.

Latha woke up in the back with the small shift in motion. She rubbed her eye with the back of her wrist. She sat up. She reached for her bags.

“We are home, akka.”

“We are home, da.”

Vanitha opened her door. She swung her legs out, slow, careful of the skirt. She stood. She turned back and leaned in through the open door.

“Summer.”

“Yes, dear.”

“Come in for a minute. Water at least.”

“Next time, Vanitha. I have to get home and write the email to Elena’s boss tonight.”

“Mm.” Vanitha’s eyes went to Summer’s face. They stayed on her for one breath longer than the polite breath. Her mouth did the small thing at the corner that was not a smile and was not a not-smile. “You will come Sunday.”

“I will come Sunday.”

“Good.” Vanitha closed the passenger door. She stepped back. She waved, small, two fingers.

Latha came around the SUV with her bags over both arms. She waved too, the full wave of a girl at a gate.

“Bye Summer.”

“Bye Latha. Wear the blue one this week.”

“Okay, Summer.”

Summer reversed out of the driveway slow. She lifted her hand in the window. Vanitha lifted hers back. Latha was already moving toward the front door with her bags.

At the corner Summer turned. Her phone was a small warm weight in her back pocket against the seat. It had not buzzed.

She drove.


Scene 2

Vanitha came through the door with her bags banging against her hip.

Selvam was on the couch. He was at the far end of it next to the lamp. Ashok was at the other end with his feet up on the ottoman and a beer on the small table next to him. The television was on with the cricket on the small corner box and the sound turned low. They both looked up when the door came open.

“Kanna.” Vanitha dropped her bags on the rug by the door. “You would not believe.”

“Baby. Tell me.”

“Mama.” She looked at Selvam. “Summer found a client for the app. The woman at the boutique. Elena. She is going to send our deck to her boss tonight. The boss has shops in New York, Miami, Dallas. She has been asking for six months for a tool like this. She will want to talk to you by Sunday.”

Selvam set the book he was holding on the small table.

“By Sunday.”

“By Sunday, mama. The app ran in the changing room. It gave Summer her measurements. To the tenth. Elena watched the whole thing. She held my hand after.”

“That is wonderful news, ma.”

His voice was even. His eyes were on her face. They did not go to the bags at the door. They did not go to Latha, who had come in behind her with her own bags and was setting them down by the stairs. His eyes were on Vanitha’s and they stayed there, clean, and she held the look a half breath longer than she should have, and she turned away.

“Latha.” She turned. “Show them.”

“Akka.”

“Show them the blue one, da. Under a t-shirt. They will not believe what the right bra does.”

Latha’s hand went to her braid. Her eyes went to Ashok at the far end of the couch and then back to Vanitha.

“Akka, really?”

“Really, da. A t-shirt. Plain. Go upstairs and put it on and come down. I want to show Anna and uncle what the app did for you.”

“Okay, akka.”

Latha picked up the blue bag. She went up the stairs, small, quick, her braid bouncing against her back.

Vanitha sat down on the ottoman at Ashok’s feet. She pulled her knees up under her. She put her hand on his shin through the track pants.

“Kanna, you should have seen her. She has been wearing the wrong size for years. Her amma bought her the first bra she owned and Latha never changed the size. The app said thirty-two C. She had a thirty-four B on. Summer said throw it away.”

“Thirty-two C.” Ashok said the words small. He had picked up his beer. He took a long swallow of it that was longer than the swallows he normally took.

“The fit, kanna. It was like a different body. You will see.”

“I will see.”

Selvam had not said anything. He was looking at the cricket in the corner box. The batsman was at the non-striker’s end. Nothing was happening on the screen. He was looking at it anyway.

Latha came back down the stairs.

She came down slow, the way she came down stairs, one hand on the rail. She had put on a plain white t-shirt from the drawer, the soft cotton one with the small scoop at the neck. She had the blue bra on underneath. She had kept on the same dusty-blue skirt she had been wearing all day.

Vanitha saw it from the ottoman first.

The difference was a thing the eye caught before the mind named it. Latha’s chest under the soft white cotton sat up. It sat high. The round shape of each breast showed under the shirt in a way that the old bra had never shown them. The shirt did not cling. The shirt did not need to cling. The shape under it did the work the shirt had been doing before, and the shape was the shape Vanitha had seen in the mirror at the boutique with the blue lace against the warm gold skin, and now the shape was back, fuller for the cotton softening it, the small dark point of each nipple a soft shadow under the white.

Vanitha clapped her hands once.

“Kanna, look.”

Ashok looked.

Vanitha saw him look. She saw his eyes go up from his beer to Latha at the bottom of the stair, and she saw them go across to the shirt, and she saw them stay there a breath, and she saw him shift on the couch, small, a half inch of his weight from one hip to the other, and she saw him reach for the beer again even though he had just put it down.

She did not read the shift. She did not read the reach. She read the look, and she read it the way she wanted to read it, which was as her husband appreciating what his wife had done for the girl who lived in his house.

“See, kanna? See how she looks now?”

“I see, baby.”

Ashok cleared his throat. He adjusted the ottoman under his feet a small amount that did not need adjusting. His hand went down to his lap for a second with the beer and he moved the beer to his other hand and he moved the first hand to his thigh and he left it there.

“Latha.” Vanitha held out her hand. “Come, da. Turn around. Show them.”

Latha came. She came to the middle of the room. She turned, small, a half turn, and then she turned back. Her hand went up to the neck of the t-shirt and she pulled at it, small, a thing to do with her fingers.

“The app is helping people, kanna.” Vanitha turned back to Ashok. She was beaming. She could feel the beam on her own face. “Look at what one measurement did. Her real size. She looks twice as beautiful now. Do you see?“

“I see, baby.”

Ashok’s voice was a small amount thick. He cleared his throat again. He took another swallow of the beer.

“Mama.” Vanitha turned to Selvam. “Do you see?”

Selvam’s eyes came off the cricket. They went to Latha at the middle of the room. They went there clean, the way his eyes went clean, and they took her in, and they came back to Vanitha’s face.

“I see, ma. You have done well for her.”

“Mama, Summer said to tell you. Elena will email the deck to her boss tonight. You will need to be on a call Sunday or Monday. Summer will set it up.”

“I will be ready.”

“Mama, they want you. They want the IP. They know it is yours.”

“Summer told Elena this.”

“She told her clean, mama. In front of me. She said, my boss’s name is Selvam Chandran. The IP is with him. You will deal with him. Elena wrote it in her book.”

Selvam’s face did the small thing it did when he was pleased and did not want to show it. His mouth did not move. His eye did. The corner of it went up a quarter millimeter. Vanitha had learned to see the quarter millimeter.

“Thank you, ma. You have done very well today.”

Vanitha held his eye a breath.

She did not mean to hold it. It held itself. The whole of the day pulled up behind her breastbone at the sight of his small face-not-moving, the boutique, the green velvet, the red lace, the three of them in the mirror, Summer’s hand on her knee, Elena’s card in the small gold purse, and she sat there on the ottoman with her hand on her husband’s shin and her eyes on her father-in-law at the far end of the couch and she felt the small warm pull behind her sternum that she always felt when Selvam looked at her this way.

Latha was still standing in the middle of the room.

“Latha. Go, da. Change. Put the skirt and tank back on. You will be comfortable.”

“Okay, akka.”

Latha went. She went fast. The stairs creaked under her small steps.

Ashok finished his beer. He stood. He walked to the kitchen.

Vanitha sat on the ottoman and watched the cricket in the corner box and did not know the day had shifted a degree under her.


Scene 3

Summer lay in bed at nine.

She had showered. She had washed the champagne and the day off her in a long hot shower with the jasmine soap she kept on the shelf. She had pulled on a soft white Henley and a pair of cotton underwear and nothing else, and her hair was down her back in a long damp fall, and she was on her side with her phone held in both hands above her face.

The text thread from Selvam was open.

She had been reading it for an hour. She had been reading it the way a person read a letter. The four grey bubbles. Her one blue one. The small typing indicator that had come on twice after she sent hers and gone off twice without sending anything, and the clean silence under it for the last three hours.

She was thinking about the file name.

_summer_lingerie_shoot_fullfrontal1.jpg.

That was the photo from the Honey Birdette shoot. The one she had uploaded from her bed on Sunday. Pink garter belt. Pink lace thong. The bra off at the end. That was the one he had been clicking on at his desk.

She thought about the boutique. The changing room with the cream wall. The three photos the app had processed. Summer in the nude bra. Vanitha in the red lace. Latha in the blue. All three photos taken on Vanitha’s phone.

The boutique photo of Summer had gone in under Vanitha’s account.

Summer sat up in bed.

Every photo they had taken in that room, Summer in the nude bra, Vanitha in the red lace, Latha in the blue, had gone into Vanitha’s upload folder on the admin.

Selvam had not seen the boutique photo. Selvam had seen the Sunday photo. The pink one. The old one.

For six hours at his desk.

She smiled. She did the full smile again, the one from the gas station, and she kept it this time because she was alone.

She stared at her Henley t-shirt, the thin white cotton suddenly an unbearable barrier between her skin and whatever might happen next. The fabric stretched across her chest, the top three buttons straining slightly, creating a small triangle of exposed skin where her breasts pushed against the cotton, demanding release.

She undid the buttons, one by one, her fingers trembling slightly. The three small white ones at the placket surrendered to her urgency. She yanked the Henley up over her head and flung it across the bed where it crumpled against the wall. Her naked breasts felt heavy, aching in the small lamp light that carved shadows beneath them. The cool air of the room rushed against her exposed skin like an unwelcome mouth, raising goosebumps that spread across her chest in a wave. Her nipples hardened painfully, almost burning with anticipation as she arched her back slightly, testing the weight of her desire.

She lifted the phone.

She held it out at arm’s length, her breath catching as she saw herself through the lens. Her heavy breasts filled the frame…nipples stiff and aching, dark pink against her pale skin, begging to be touched. She arched her back slightly, making them thrust forward, and tilted the phone until the lamplight caught the slick sheen of saliva where she’d just licked her own nipple. The damp strands of her hair clung to one breast, a dark snake against alabaster, while shadows accentuated every curve and valley of her flesh. Her free hand cupped the underside of one breast, thumb brushing across the sensitive tip.

She took the photo.

She looked at it. Her breath caught. The lamp cast a golden halo around her nipples, her wet hair snaking across one breast like a dark promise. Her hand cupping the fullness beneath made the photo useless for measurements but perfect for what she truly wanted… the raw intimacy of her bedroom, her bed, her desire. No softbox lights. No photographer directing her pose. No cardboard reflectors. No leaf blower creating artificial movement. Just her body’s honest hunger, exposed and waiting.

She renamed it in her photos app.

_summer_cute_breasts2.jpg

She opened the app. She logged in as herself. She went through the upload flow with one hand on the phone and one hand on her thigh. She picked the photo. She hit submit. The small progress bar crawled. The confirmation screen came up.

Thank you. Your data has helped.

She put the phone face up on her chest, on the soft between her breasts, and she lay back on the pillow and she waited.

The phone buzzed against her hard nipples at 9:34.

_Selvam viewed summer_cute_breasts2.jpg at 9:34pm.

She breathed out, slow.

The phone buzzed again. This time it was the text thread.

Summer.

Then, a half minute later.

I am telling you. You need to remove my access.

She laughed out loud, one breath of it, in her bedroom at the empty ceiling.

She typed.

why selvam

She sent it.

The typing indicator came on. It stayed on for a breath. It went off. It came on again.

Because you know why.

She bit her lip. She kept it bitten.

tell me anyway

The indicator came on. It went off. It came on. A message came.

I am a disciplined man, Summer. I have been a disciplined man for twenty years. You are making me not a disciplined man in one week.

She read the message twice. She read the word disciplined both times. She put her hand on her own belly, flat, above the waistband of the cotton underwear, and she felt the small warm pull under her palm.

im sorry

i am not sorry

i am definitely not sorry selvam

She sent the three messages fast, one after the other, not letting herself edit. The blue bubbles stacked up.

His reply came.

I know.

She smiled into the pillow.

She typed.

tell me what you like

A long pause.

On a woman?

yes selvam. on a woman.

Longer pause.

The indicator came on and went off four times before the message came.

I came to the US once. Twenty years ago. For a conference. I was twenty eight. I walked on a street in San Francisco on a Saturday and I saw a woman at a crosswalk. She had on a mini skirt. Low on her hip. A small top. A thin chain around her waist. Another chain at her hip. She was on a phone. She did not see me. She crossed the street. I stood at the light after she had gone and I did not cross until the light had changed again.

Summer read the message. She read it again.

what else

Low rise jeans. The kind that show the hip bone. A cropped shirt above them. The small strip of belly. A waist chain under it. A thin one. Gold. Small beads.

Heels. Not tall ones. The small ones that make a calf lift when she walks.

A small top that ties at the back of the neck. Her shoulders bare.

Summer’s hand had slid off her belly and down under the waistband of the cotton underwear without her deciding it had. She had not meant to put it there. It had gone there on its own. Her fingers had slid, soft, through the small hair and down, and she was wet, clean wet, the kind of wet that did not need a hand to know it was wet, and her fingers went there to confirm and they stayed.

She closed her eyes.

She thought about a wardrobe. She thought about the closet at the end of her hall. She thought about the low rise jeans she owned, the ones of the Y2K style that’s coming back and she had kept because she had kept them. She thought about the small gold waist chain she had bought in Italy two summers ago and had not worn because she had not had the occasion. She thought about a cropped white tank. She thought about the small heels. She thought about walking into his son’s house on Sunday in all of it.

She typed with her one free hand.

i have all of that selvam

Summer.

every piece of it

The indicator came on. It stayed on a long time.

You are going to be a problem for me.

She smiled at the ceiling. Her fingers moved in small circles. Her breath went soft.

i know selvam

good night

She put the phone face down on the nightstand.

She did not go to sleep for a long time.

[Rajani Rajendran]

You must be in the fashion industry for this much detailing. Good job.

[Rajani Rajendran]

Selvam is not retired yet. What is his profession. Is he still working/ worked etc not clearly dwelved.