My mother and the landlord (Slow burn, long read)

[Authorsunny]

Finally Sunday night is over.
I thought he would jerk off during his mom's sleep,but he did it even before she arrived.
Just after witnessing their romance he became desparate,what would he do tomorrow afternoon, stay in office, no he won't.
For Anjali there is no neer to tell him,even if he come in afternoon to peep into home ,it is 3rd floor,day light hrs,
Moreover they planned to do it in the only available bed.he daily sleeps
Waiting for tomorrow afternoon episode  .

Expect the unexpected :-)

[Ayush01111]

Will mom get chanceb with son

[saka1981]

One part of Sunny’s mind keeps questioning whether everything his mother does is really right. Since Sunny has accepted Anjali’s actions, he now wonders whether it is right for her to invite Azad in the afternoon and have an intimate relationship with him.

Another part of his mind is trapped in desire and wants to watch his mother being intimate with someone. What is going to happen next...? I’m waiting eagerly for the next episode.

[byteson]

Hope the new update comes before 10pm today before I sleep, for obvious reasons.

[spica308]

Expect the unexpected :-)

Sunny’s presence outside Azad flat is discovered by some one and reported to Azad.
If that happens, Sunny is cuckolded and all pretense of probity between Mother and Son is over. 
Perhaps not, as Author has conveyed that there is no humiliation in the story. Waiting. 
Just a wild guess.

[Tea_Kadai_Boy]

This part kept subtly the tension of Sunny on edge. The earlier parts showed that the heat on Anjali is overbearing on him, I feel that it might be something unexpected.

[V1star]

Rocking star Anjali.

[Authorsunny]

Chapter 25 – Monday
1 December 2025 – Monday

The grill held that first grey light that always comes before the real morning. The tube light was off. The night bulb near the bathroom was off too. Ma was on her side of the bed, turned toward the wall, one arm folded under the pillow. The old peach nighty had ridden up in her sleep. It sat at her knees. The cloth had twisted around her waist. I could see the soft skin of her calves and the full shape of her thighs. Higher, under the thin cotton, the heavy round shape of her breasts lay against the mattress, rising and falling with her breath. She had not put a bra on last night. I had seen that when she pulled the nighty over her head in the kitchen. In this light it was even clearer.

The payal made no sound because her feet were still.

I got up carefully so the mattress would not creak. I went to the bathroom. I closed the door as much as the weak latch allowed. I sat down to finish the morning work I always did first, before tea, before brushing, before anything else. I looked at the floor. I tried not to think about the green saree on the chair, or the two black bras, or the kitchen wall downstairs.

That was when I heard the sound from the main room.

A soft click. Then the heavier sound of the latch being turned from outside, as if someone who knew our lock had used a key. Then footsteps. Not hers. Heavier. A man’s weight on our thin floor.

I stopped.

My first thought was that I had not locked the door properly after last night. My second thought was worse.

I finished as fast as I could, pulled my pants up, and stood. I did not flush. I did not want the sound. I put my eye to the gap between the bathroom door and the frame, the same gap that had shown me too many things already.

The peach nighty was not on her.

Ma was on her back on our bed. The sheet was pushed down. She was bare. Completely bare except for the gold chain, the silver bracelet, and the payal on her ankles. The morning light from the grill fell across her stomach and the heavy soft weight of her breasts. They had spread a little with her lying down, the dark nipples tight in the cool air. Her hair was open on the pillow. Her knees were apart.

Azad Sahab was over her.

The black pathani from last night was half off. The top hung from one shoulder. The lower part was open. His chest was dark and broad. There was hair on it. His trousers were pushed down only as far as he needed. I could not see everything from the slit, but I could see enough. His body boxed her the same way it had boxed her against the fridge wall. One of his hands held her wrist above her head, against our pillow. The other hand was on her breast, not gentle, owning the weight of it.

Her arms were around him. Not pushing. Holding.

The payal rang when her feet moved.

I could not believe what I was seeing. It was morning. I was in the house. She knew I was in the house. Still she had taken the nighty off. Still she was lying under him on the same bed where I had slept three feet away.

“Azad… he is inside,” she whispered. Her voice was the same low voice from the kitchen last night. “The door is not even closed properly.”

“Then let him hear.” His voice was rough from sleep and from not sleeping enough. “You told the boy you accepted it. Accepted means this also. Not only dinner and tea.”

“I did not call you for this hour.”

“You opened the door.”

She did not have an answer for that. She only pulled him down by the back of his neck and kissed him the way she had kissed him against the fridge — mouth open, no small beginning. The sound of it carried across the folding table. Wet. Hungry. Her bangles clicked against his shoulder.

He broke the kiss and looked at her face.

“You did not sleep.”

“No.”

“Because of me.”

“Because of many things.” She lifted her hips a little, seeking him. “Don’t talk so much now. You said you waited since celebration. So take. But keep your voice down. Please.”

He laughed once, short, into her throat.

“You say please and then you open your legs like this. You know what you are.”

“I know.” Her breath caught when his hand left her breast and went lower. I could not see where his fingers went. The angle of his back blocked it. But I saw her mouth open. I saw her head tip back. I heard the small sound she tried to keep in her throat. “Azad… ah… not so hard”

His hand kept moving. The wet sound was faint but clear in the small room. “You are already like this. In the morning. After one kiss in my kitchen. Say it.”

“I am…” She bit her lip. The payal chimed as her feet flexed. “I am ready. You can feel it.”

“Say it.”

She turned her face toward the bathroom wall, toward me without knowing, or maybe knowing. Her eyes were half closed. There was colour on her throat, on her chest, on the upper curve of her breasts where his mouth had already been.

“I want you inside,” she said, very low. “I thought about it the whole night. I should not have. But I did. Now do it. Properly. The way you do. I can take it.”

He pushed the pathani further off his hips.

From the slit I saw him then.

His cock was already hard. It was thick, darker than the rest of him, with a heavy vein running along the side. The head was broad and wet. It stood up against the soft skin of her inner thigh. He took it in his fist and rubbed the head against her. I still could not see her pussy. His body and her thigh hid it. But I heard how wet she was. I heard the slide. I saw her stomach tighten.

“Look at you,” he said. “Widow of this building. Mother of that boy. And in the morning you are dripping for the man who collects your rent.”

“Don’t say it like that.”

“It is the truth.” He put the head in place. He did not push yet. He only held it there, letting her feel the size. “This is not a boy’s thing. You know that. You felt it in the hotel. You felt it on celebration night. Tell me you missed this.”

“I missed it.” The words came out of her as if they had been waiting. “I missed it too much. That is the problem. Now put it in. Slowly first. You are… you are a lot.”

He pushed.

Not all at once. The first inch made her gasp. Her hand left his neck and gripped the sheet. The gold chain lifted and fell in the hollow of her throat. He pushed again. Another inch. The vein disappeared into her. Her mouth opened without sound. Her knees came up. The payal rang twice, sharp.

“Take it,” he said. His voice had dropped into that flat command he used when he stopped asking. “This is what you kept postponing for neighbours and for your son’s clock. Take all of it.”

“I am taking… ah… Azad, wait… it is too deep like this…”

He did not wait the way she asked. He gave her a second, only a second, then he put his weight in and went to the base. I saw his stomach meet hers. I saw her whole body accept the length of him. Her breasts shook once. A thin sound left her, high and broken, the sound of a woman who has been filled past the point of pretending.

“Full,” he said against her ear. “That is how you should be in the morning. Not packing tiffin. Not thinking about stairs. Full of me.”

“Yes.” She said it immediately. “Yes. Stay. Don’t pull out yet. Let me… let me get used.”

He stayed. His hips made a small circle inside her. I could not see the place they were joined, but I could see the effect. The muscles in her thighs jumped. Her toes pointed. The silver on her ankles flashed.

“You feel that?”

“I feel everything.” Her eyes were wet at the corners, not from crying, from the stretch. “You are hitting the place… the same place… don’t move so big yet.”

He moved anyway. A short stroke out, a longer stroke in. The bed frame made the old creak it made when anyone turned at night. In the morning it sounded filthy. Wet skin. His breath. Her breath. The soft slap when his body met the inside of her thighs.

“This house heard only your serials and his laptop for years,” he said. “Now it will hear this. Your son is in the bathroom and his mother is taking cock like she has been hungry for five years.”

“Azad… don’t…”

“Good.” Another stroke, deeper. She moaned into his shoulder to hide it. “Let him hear what kind of woman raised him. The kind who opens the door at six in the morning and lies down without a bra.”

Her legs wrapped around him. The payal pressed into his back. She was not fighting him. She was helping. She pulled him in when he pushed. She lifted when he pulled back, as if she did not want to lose even an inch.

“Harder,” she whispered, after a minute of the slower rhythm. The word surprised even me. “You wanted it hard. So be hard. I can keep my voice down. I have practice.”

He lifted his head and looked at her.

Then he gave her what she asked.

The next thrusts were not careful. They were deep and regular, the kind a man gives when he has decided the woman under him can take his full size. The vein on his cock showed only when he drew back, shiny, thick, and then it was gone again, buried. Her breasts moved in heavy circles. The chain jumped. His mouth closed on one nipple and pulled. She bit the pillow.

I stood behind the bathroom door with my forehead almost on the wood. My own body had gone hard without permission. The guilt was there. The heat was louder. I could smell her from here — sleep, last night’s perfume, and the new smell of sex that our small room had never held in the morning like this.

“Tell me who you belong to.”

“You.” She said it into the pillow first, then turned her face so he could hear it clearly. “Don’t stop. Please don’t stop. I needed this more than the dinner. More than the box. More than the talk in front of Ammi.”

“And the boy?”

“He is my son.” Her voice broke on a thrust that went too deep. “That does not change. But this… this is not for him to stop. I tried to keep it outside. I tried to keep it in your kitchen. It is not staying outside. So take it here. Finish it here.”

He pulled out of her suddenly. She made a lost sound, as if the emptiness hurt. He turned her with both hands, easy, because he was stronger and because she let him. She went onto her elbows and knees on our bed. Her back was a long warm line. The waist he had held under the pallu last night was bare now. The full round shape of her seat was in the morning light. I still could not see between her legs from my angle. I saw only the dark hanging weight of her breasts, the chain swinging, and then him kneeling behind her and putting that thick veiny cock back into her in one long push.

She cried out. 

He held her hips the way a man holds something he has paid for and also wanted. His thumbs pressed into the soft flesh. He fucked her like that — steady, deep, the sound wetter than before. The payal never stopped. Every thrust made the silver speak.

“This is how a woman should be used after she has been denying a man for days,” he said. He was not whispering anymore. He was keeping the volume just under a shout. “You wore my saree. You wore my silver. You sat two feet away and called me a guest. Now take the guest properly.”

“I am taking…” Her words came out in pieces, pushed out of her by his body. “I am taking it… Azad… you are so big from the back… it is going too far in…”

“That is the point.”

He reached forward and caught a handful of her hair, not cruel enough to hurt her neck, firm enough to lift her face. Her mouth was open. There was spit on her lower lip. Her eyes were almost closed.

“Look toward that bathroom,” he said.

“No.”

“Look.”

She looked.

I froze. I was sure she could see the dark of my eye in the gap. I was sure the morning had ended for me. But her eyes were unfocused. She was looking at the door, not through it. She was looking because he told her to.

“Your son is in there,” Azad Sahab said. “He has been listening to his mother get opened. Say sorry to him.”

“I am not going to say that.”

He thrust harder, punishing the refusal. Her whole body rocked. The old wooden frame protested.

“Then say the other thing. Say you like it.”

“I like it.” She said it at once, as if the harder thrust had knocked the truth loose. “I like it. I like how you hold me. I like how thick you are. I like that you do not ask like a boy. I like that you come and take. I should not like it this much. I still like it.”

“Good girl.”

The words landed on her like a hand. She shivered. Her arms weakened. She dropped from her elbows to her chest, ass still up, and he followed her down without leaving her body. The new angle made her moan into the mattress, raw and shameless. I had never heard that sound from her. Not in twenty-one years. Not in the kitchen last night. This was the hotel sound. This was the sound from the videos I was not supposed to have. It was in our room now, on our sheet, under our tube light that was still off.

He did not last in that position as long as the first. He pulled out again, turned her onto her back, and pushed her knees toward her own chest. Her breasts flattened and then spilled to the sides. He put himself back in with one look at the place I still could not see, and then he was covering her again, chest to chest, his mouth on hers to swallow the noise.

The bed knocked the wall.

Once. Twice.

“The neighbours,” she gasped into his mouth.

“Let them hear..give me what I came for and I will go.”

She nodded. She kissed him. She used her body. Her legs locked high on his back. She met every thrust. Sweat shone in the line between her breasts and at her temples. The bracelet slid up and down her wrist. She had become, in those minutes, the thing he wanted her to be — not the mother who packed pickle, not the woman who lit diyas, the other one, the one who said yes in a kitchen and then opened the door at dawn.

“I am close,” he said.

“Inside.” She said it without shame. “Do it inside. I will clean after. Just… just give it. I want to feel it. I have been empty since that night.”

He buried himself to the root and stayed there, grinding, the thick vein lost in her, his breath harsh in her hair. His body went tight. He made a low sound that was not words. She held his head and took it. I saw her face when he came — the small wince, then the softness, then the look of a woman who has been filled and is still hungry around it.

He did not pull out at once. He stayed in her, heavy, claiming the minutes after.

That was when he turned his head.

He looked straight at the bathroom door.

Straight at the slit.

Straight at me.

There was no surprise on his face. Only that one-sided smile, colder in the morning light than it had been at our dinner table. He moved his hips once more, slow, still inside her, so that she made a small helpless sound, and he spoke without lowering his voice.

“Come out, Sunny.”

My name in his mouth made the floor tilt.

“You stood there like a good boy and watched your mother take it. Don’t hide now. This is the new rent of this flat. Not seven thousand. This. Her, on this bed, whenever I walk up the stairs. She cooks your food with my seed still in her. Remember that when you eat your paratha. Remember who she opens for. Your father is gone. You are only the son. The man of this house comes from the ground floor.”

Ma did not stop him. She only turned her face toward the bathroom too, flushed, lips swollen, and smiled, almost wickedly.

He continued “Next time don’t close the door. If you want to learn how a woman is used, look properly. She is not hiding anymore.”

Then her voice came from somewhere else.

Not from the bed.

From above me.

“Sunny. Sunny, get up. It is late.”

The bed was not moving.

There was no pathani.

There was no wet sound.

There was only her hand on my shoulder, shaking once, and the ordinary creak of the mattress when she sat down on the edge.

I opened my eyes.

[Ayush01111]

In dream is azad trying to maie chuck no not olease dont make it like that

[Authorsunny]

In dream is azad trying to maie chuck no not olease dont make it like that

No, not at all. It is just a dream, and dreams are supposed to be irrational and unjustifiable.

[V1star]

Author sunny while writing this episode:

[Authorsunny]

[url=https://ibb.co/dshQ2k6n][/url


Going through this episode be like...

Hahaha, hope you enjoyed it brother!

[saka1981]

As soon as Azad came into the house, this time I was able to figure out that it was Sunny’s dream. Because, for now, Anjali knows where her boundaries lie. That is why it was possible to realize that this was only a dream.

But in the future, even this could happen, because of desire. When desire takes over the mind, it sees no boundaries and stops caring about anything

[V1star]

[baddu]

[Anubantu]

Nice twist at last

[wxxxx]

Sunny's dream in Chapter 25 – Monday
1 December 2025 – Monday [“Your son is in there,” Azad Sahab said. “He has been listening to his mother get opened. Say sorry to him.”

“I am not going to say that.”

He thrust harder, punishing the refusal. Her whole body rocked. The old wooden frame protested.

“Then say the other thing. Say you like it.”

“I like it.” She said it at once, as if the harder thrust had knocked the truth loose. “I like it. I like how you hold me. I like how thick you are. I like that you do not ask like a boy. I like that you come and take. I should not like it this much. I still like it.”

“Good girl.”

The words landed on her like a hand. She shivered. Her arms weakened. She dropped from her elbows to her chest, ass still up, and he followed her down without leaving her body. The new angle made her moan into the mattress, raw and shameless. I had never heard that sound from her. Not in twenty-one years. Not in the kitchen last night. This was the hotel sound. This was the sound from the videos I was not supposed to have. It was in our room now, on our sheet, under our tube light that was still off.

He did not last in that position as long as the first. He pulled out again, turned her onto her back, and pushed her knees toward her own chest. Her breasts flattened and then spilled to the sides. He put himself back in with one look at the place I still could not see, and then he was covering her again, chest to chest, his mouth on hers to swallow the noise. The bed knocked the wall.

Once. Twice.

“The neighbours,” she gasped into his mouth.

“Let them hear..give me what I came for and I will go.”

She nodded. She kissed him. She used her body. Her legs locked high on his back. She met every thrust. Sweat shone in the line between her breasts and at her temples. The bracelet slid up and down her wrist. She had become, in those minutes, the thing he wanted her to be — not the mother who packed pickle, not the woman who lit diyas, the other one, the one who said yes in a kitchen and then opened the door at dawn.

“I am close,” he said.

“Inside.” She said it without shame. “Do it inside. I will clean after. Just… just give it. I want to feel it. I have been empty since that night.”

He buried himself to the root and stayed there, grinding, the thick vein lost in her, his breath harsh in her hair. His body went tight. He made a low sound that was not words. She held his head and took it. I saw her face when he came — the small wince, then the softness, then the look of a woman who has been filled and is still hungry around it.

He did not pull out at once. He stayed in her, heavy, claiming the minutes after.

That was when he turned his head.

He looked straight at the bathroom door.

Straight at the slit.

Straight at me.

There was no surprise on his face. Only that one-sided smile, colder in the morning light than it had been at our dinner table. He moved his hips once more, slow, still inside her, so that she made a small helpless sound, and he spoke without lowering his voice.

“Come out, Sunny.”

My name in his mouth made the floor tilt.

“You stood there like a good boy and watched your mother take it. Don’t hide now. This is the new rent of this flat. Not seven thousand. This. Her, on this bed, whenever I walk up the stairs. She cooks your food with my seed still in her. Remember that when you eat your paratha. Remember who she opens for. Your father is gone. You are only the son. The man of this house comes from the ground floor.”

Ma did not stop him. She only turned her face toward the bathroom too, flushed, lips swollen, and smiled, almost wickedly.

He continued “Next time don’t close the door. If you want to learn how a woman is used, look properly. She is not hiding anymore.”] has fulfilled the long-awaited hopes of the readers, now the author of the story My mother and the landlord (Slow burn, long read) Authorsunny should make Sunny's dream a reality in the next update of Chapter 25 or in Chapter 26. I sincerely thank the author Authorsunny from the bottom of my heart.

[Authorsunny]

Chapter 25 – Monday (Continued)
1 December 2025 – Monday

The grill. The real morning light, a little stronger than the dream light. The tube light still off. Ma sitting beside me in the same old peach nighty from last night. The nighty was on her body. It had not been on the floor. Her hair was tied loosely, not spread on the pillow under a man. The mark on her throat was only the faint shadow from before. She was looking at my face with the worried look she used when I had fever in college.

I was dripping with sweat. The sheet under me was damp. My heart was going too fast. And I was hard — painfully hard, pressed against the grey house pants, the kind of hardness that has no respect for the fact that your mother is sitting one foot away calling your name.

The pictures from the dream were still in front of my eyes. Her knees apart. The vein on him. The payal. The way she had said inside. The way he had looked at the door and used my name.

Guilt came in the same second as the heat. It sat in my throat. I had seen my mother like that. I had made her like that in my own head. I had stood in a bathroom that I had not even walked into yet and watched a thing that had not happened.

“What happened?” she asked. Her voice was normal. Soft. Mother. “You were breathing so fast. Did you see some scary dream?”

I could not answer properly. My mouth was dry. I looked at her because I did not know where else to look, and the first thing that landed was not her eyes.

It was the neckline.

The peach nighty sat low in the morning sun that had finally come through the grill. No bra. The cloth was thin from years of washing. The heavy round shape of her breasts was clear under it, the dark suggestion of the nipples, the soft line between them. When she leaned forward to check my face the neckline fell more and the upper curve came into the light, warm and real and nothing like the dream only because this time she was only waking her son.

I sat up too fast. I bent forward so the pants would not speak. Sweat ran down my back.

“I… I don’t know. Some dream. It’s nothing.”

“You are burning.” She put the back of her hand on my forehead, then on my neck. Her palm was warm from the kitchen. I could already smell jeera and onion from the corner. “No fever. Only heat. Wash your face. Tea is almost ready.”

She stood. The nighty settled. The payal — made one small sound. The sound went through me like the dream had put it there on purpose.

The real morning was already in progress without me.

She had woken before me, the way she always did. The pressure cooker had been used. The kadhai was on the flame. The whole flat smelled of tadka — jeera, hing, red chilli, something sharp and masaledar that made the small room feel awake. She moved between the stove and the rolling board in the same peach nighty. There was flour on her right wrist and a thin streak of it on the cloth near her waist. Her forehead had a shine of sweat even though the day had only started. The kitchen corner held the heat of the gas the way it always did in December if someone cooked early and closed the door.

My formal shirt was already on the back of the chair. Light blue. Ironed. The collar stood properly. On the bathroom hook she had hung my inner wear and a clean towel. The shoes from Friday were near the door, the same pair she had polished before the first day back.

None of it was a favour she announced. It was just done.

I went into the bathroom and closed the door as far as it would close. The latch still did not catch. The gap was still there. Through it I could hear the rolling pin and the soft hiss of the tadka when she lifted the lid.

There was no bra on the hook.

Of course there was not. She had not bathed yet. She never bathed first. Morning chores, tea, tiffin, then bath. I knew this. I had known this for years. After last night I had still looked, as if the black lace might be waiting to finish what the doorbell had cut.

I stood in front of the small tap and washed my face with cold water. The dream did not wash off. The kitchen from last night did not wash off. The bra in my hand did not wash off. They sat together in my body and refused to become three separate things.

I was still hard.

I told myself I would not do anything. I told myself it was Monday, office, Mr. Sinha, the corrected module. I told myself she was ten feet away rolling rotis.

Then I opened the tap a little more so the water would cover sound, put my back to the wall where I could still see the gap, and took myself out.

I did not think in order. The images came the way they wanted. Her nighty at her knees on the bed. The dream version with no nighty at all. The real version from last night, standing in the kitchen, blouse hooks opening, breasts spilling, the second black bra falling on the stool. His mouth on hers against the fridge. 

I kept my eyes on the door.

If the gap went dark, if her feet came, I could stop. The payal would warn me. That was the thought.

It did not take long. Sunday night had not finished. The body had only been waiting for a locked minute that was not even locked. I came into my fist with my teeth closed, breathing through my nose, the water still running. For two or three seconds there was only relief. Then the same guilt sat down again, heavier because this time I was awake.

I washed. I washed again. I put on the inners she had hung for me. I looked at my face in the mirror. It looked like a person who had slept badly and then made it worse on purpose.

When I came out she was packing boxes.

She was not making non-veg.

That was the first thing I noticed after my own head cleared enough to see the counter.

On the stove there was a dry aloo sabzi, the kind she made with extra jeera, and a second kadhai with a yellow dal that had tadka sitting on top, red and fragrant. Rotis were in a covered steel plate, stacked, a clean cloth on them to keep the steam. There was no chicken. No mutton. No smell of that kind. There never was, almost.

She had cooked non-veg in this house so rarely that I could name the last time. Chicken, about two years ago, when a guest had come and she felt she should put something on the table that looked like a feast. Even then she had eaten little. I had eaten none. I did not like it. The smell stayed in the curtains. She knew that. She did not bring that smell into our room without a reason.

Azad Sahab ate mutton. He had carried it up three floors last night. Ammi would eat whatever was sent. Their kitchen on the ground floor had no maid till tomorrow. And still, on this counter, there was only the food we ate.

I watched her pack.

Two tiffins.

Not one.

My usual carrier was open on the folding table. She put two thick rotis in the first box, a full portion of the dry sabzi, a small box of dal, pickle in the tiny steel katori she always used for me, and a spoon. She closed it firmly, the way she had closed it on Friday.

The second carrier was larger. Two boxes inside it. She filled both with the same sabzi and dal and rotis, only the portions were different — one a little less spicy, I saw her take out some of the tadka before she put the dal in that one. For Ammi. The other box she packed the way she packed for a man who ate more. She wiped the rims. She checked the lids. She put a separate small box of kheer from last night, the same kheer he had asked her to send.

Flour on her nighty. Flour on her fingers. Sweat at her temples and in the hollow of her throat. The peach cloth stuck a little under her arms. She looked tired in a way that had nothing to do with rolling dough. The kind of tired that comes when a person has not really slept and has still stood at the stove before the building woke.

She worked as if the packing itself was a duty she had taken on with both hands. Not show. Not ehsan. Dedication. The same face she used to wear when she counted notes for my fees.

“You made for downstairs also,” I said.

She did not look up from the lid.

“Yess, beta. Ammi cannot stand. The maid is not back yet.”

She said it lightly, but I heard the other thing under it. She would feed his house. 

We sat at the folding table with tea and two plates.

For a while there was only the sound of the cups.

Then she spoke, looking at her tea, not at me.

“What time will you come today?”

The question was ordinary. It did not feel ordinary.

“Same as usual. Six-thirty, seven. Depends on traffic after the flyover.”

“Ohh, alright beta. Drive carefully.”

The stress on the return time sat on the table between the two glasses. She did not explain it. She did not need to. I had heard last night through an open kitchen window. Afternoon. Before he comes from office. Keep the door ready.

I looked at my plate.

“Did anyone say anything?” she asked after a moment. “Yesterday, or Friday, in the compound. Anyone stopped you?”

“No Ma, nothing as such.”

“Good.” She turned the glass slowly. “If someone says something, don’t answer. Especially that woman on the first floor. Silence is better. I told you.”

“I know.”

She drank. The tiredness was on her face in a way she was not performing. Darker under the eyes. The mouth softer from lack of sleep, not from a man, not this morning, only from a night spent turning.

“You got up very early,” I said.

“Sleep did not come last night.”

She said it as a fact. Not as a thing I should thank. Not as a thing I should pity. Just the night, placed on the table.

“You should lie down after I go.”

She shook her head and pointed at herself with the same hand that had flour on the side.

“In this? Sweat and atta and oil smell. Who sleeps like this. And once I bathe, sleep will not come. You know how I am. Bath means the day has started. After that the eyes stay open.”

It was true. It had always been true. The picture of her trying to nap in a flour-stained nighty was suddenly funny in a small, ordinary way. I felt a breath of laugh come out of me. She looked at me, surprised, then she laughed too, short and real, the first easy sound of the morning.

“See,” she said. “Even you know. Don’t give advice that I cannot use.”

“All right. Don’t sleep. Just don’t stand on the stove till afternoon.”

“I will finish and sit. That much I can do.”

She reached across and touched the back of my hand once, the same light contact as Friday morning. Then she stood and packed my carrier into the bag.

“Eat the sabzi at lunch. It has come out good today. Extra jeera, the way you like. Don’t drink only tea in that office.”

“I won’t.”

“And message when you reach.”

“I will.”

I dressed. The ironed shirt sat on my shoulders with the smell of the iron and her detergent. She adjusted the collar even though it did not need it. For a second her eyes checked my face the way they had after Thursday night, asking without words whether the acceptance was still there after Sunday dinner.

I did not know what she saw.

I picked up the backpack and the tiffin. At the door I looked back once. She was already closing the larger carrier for downstairs. The peach nighty, the payal, the sweat, the two lives in one kitchen. She did not look like the woman from the dream. She looked like my mother who had not slept and had still made tadka before seven.

“Go,” she said. “Otherwise you will face traffic.”

The corridor was empty.

I locked the door from outside. The sound was loud in my own ears. I went down slowly. Second floor, no one. First floor, Sunita’s door was shut. I did not look at it longer than I needed to. Ground floor, his heavy door was shut. I walked past it with my eyes on the compound.

The bike was in the usual strip. I strapped the tiffin on the hook, put the helmet on, and sat. That was when I saw her.

Sunita Kulkarni was coming in from the lane. A cloth bag in one hand. The same tight hair. The same small black bindi. She saw the bike. She saw me. She did not stop walking, but her eyes did the work. They went over my face the way a person looks at something they have already named. There was no greeting. There was no smirk big enough to point at. Only that look — flat, sure, and full of the landing from Thursday.

Kalank.

The boy who looks the other way.

The look made me feel exactly as useful as a person who locks a door and then pretends the afternoon on the other side of it is not already decided. I kicked the engine. I did not look at her again. I rolled out of the compound and into the lane.

The morning air was cool. Milkmen. College buses. The first office scooters. I kept the speed moderate. The flyover came and went. The signals near the station road held me longer than I wanted. 

The office complex near the metro came up on the right, glass and concrete, already filling. I took the ramp into the parking basement, found the usual slot, and stopped.

I killed the engine.

For a second I sat on the bike with my helmet still on and both feet on the ground, the tiffin bag hanging behind me, Monday waiting in the lift.

The rest of the day was upstairs.

And the rest of the day, I already knew, was also three floors up in a different building, behind a door I had locked from the outside.

[Authorsunny]

Chapter 25 (Continued) 
1 December 2025 – Monday

The lift in the office building was already full when I reached it. Someone was talking about a client call. Someone else was holding a paper cup of tea that smelled too sweet. I stood at the back with the tiffin bag against my leg and looked at the floor numbers changing. Four. The doors opened. The same glass, the same carpet, the same low hum of air-conditioning that never fully removed the Monday feeling.

I swiped my card. The security man nodded the way he nodded every day. I walked to my desk near the east windows.

Rohan was already there. Vikram came two minutes later. They said the usual things. Weekend finished too soon. Inbox is full. Delivery is close. I said yes and opened the laptop.

Mr. Sinha was more agitated than Friday.

I saw it before he even came to our cluster. He was moving between the glass cabin and the other desks with a file in his hand. His shirt sleeves were rolled. He spoke shorter sentences. A delivery date that had felt far in November was now sitting on this week. People on the floor were quieter when he passed.

He stopped at our row around ten-thirty.

“Sunny. The revised sheet from Friday. Is it in the shared folder or only in mail?”

“Both, sir. I put it Friday evening.”

“Open it. Show me the sprint numbers again. I don’t want another old figure going to the client.”

He did not raise his voice. He did not need to. Friday was still in the cabin with us. I opened the file. The numbers were correct this time. I had checked them twice on Friday after the meeting and once more in my head on the bike this morning, in the gaps between the dream and the tadka. He looked. He nodded once.

“Good. Stay on this module today. No half work. We are close to delivery.”

“Yes, sir.”

He left. Rohan looked at his screen. Vikram typed. No one mentioned Friday out loud. That was enough.

The morning, somehow, went relatively well.

I say relatively because the work got done. Two smaller tickets. Comments on a shared document. A short call with Sameer from the other group about an API that both teams touched. My hands knew the keyboard. My eyes stayed on the screen longer than they had on Friday. From the outside it would have looked like a normal Monday.

I even answered a doubt on the group chat without delay. A junior from another tower had tagged three of us. Vikram was on a call. Rohan was at the pantry. I wrote the steps in simple lines and sent them. The junior replied with a thank you. For ten minutes I felt like a person who works in an office and not like a person who had locked his own door from the outside knowing what the afternoon was for.

From the inside it was not so clean.

Every time I paused, the third-floor flat came back. The peach nighty. The flour on her wrist. The way the dream had put Azad Sahab on our bed and then taken him away when she shook my shoulder.

I drank water. I did not look at the clock every minute. Only every few minutes.

At twelve-forty people started moving toward the pantry. Vikram asked if I was coming. I said I had brought lunch. He nodded and went. Sameer passed my desk, saw the steel boxes, and grinned the same way he had on Friday.

“Home food again. Lucky.”

I smiled a little. He left.

I stayed at the desk.

I opened the tiffin.

The sabzi was exactly as she had said — dry, extra jeera, the smell that belonged to our kitchen and not to this floor. The roti was still soft. I ate slowly because eating slowly gave my hands something to do.

I preferred to sit alone.

The pantry would have meant talk. Talk would have meant my face. My face was not ready.

My body temperature felt high. Not fever. The other heat. The one that had started in the bathroom at dawn and had not fully left. Anxiety sat in my stomach under the food. I kept thinking in simple questions that had no simple answers.

Would he be there by now?

He had said that last night in the kitchen. Afternoon. Before the boy comes. Keep the door ready.

It was lunch time here. At home, it was the same lunch time. If he had gone up, he would already be in our room.

Would they be doing it?

The question arrived in those words. I did not dress it up.

I saw yesterday’s kitchen without trying. Her back against the fridge. His hand on her raised wrist. The clean underarm. The kiss that was not a small kiss. The way her mouth had opened. The way the blouse had pulled over the upper curve of her breast. The way she had said yes for today.

Then the hotel came.

I had tried for days not to let those videos sit in the front of my mind at office. Today they came anyway. White sheets. Her hair fallen forward. Her mouth on him. The way she had looked up once at the camera, or at him, I still did not know which. The sound that the phone speaker had not fully caught. I had watched it only twice and then locked the phone and felt sick and hard at the same time. That feeling returned now, at a desk, with dal on my spoon.

Then the dream.

The peach nighty on the floor. The payal. The thick vein. Her saying inside. His face turning to the bathroom slit. Come out, Sunny. This is the new rent.

I put the spoon down.

I was hard under the desk. Fully. The kind that makes the formal pants feel too thin. I sat forward so the table would hide it. I looked at the monitor as if the code could save me. The cursor blinked. I did not type.

I took out my phone.

WhatsApp. Her chat. I did not message. I only looked at the last seen.

Through the morning it had been moving.

I had checked once after reaching, when I sent her the line I had promised — reached. She had replied with a single okay and a folded-hands emoji she rarely used. Last seen then was 9:41.

At 10:20 it was 10:18.

At 11:05 it was 11:02.

At 12:10 it was 12:07.

Every five minutes, more or less. Online, offline, online again. A person who is in the house with a phone nearby. Packing. Bathing. Messaging him. Messaging me. Waiting.

I ate two more bites. I checked again at 1:15. Last seen 1:11.

Then I went to the washroom because sitting with that hardness was becoming stupid. I did not do anything there. I only stood, breathed, washed my face, and came back. The heat did not fall by much.

At 2:10 I checked again. Last seen 2:00 PM.

At 2:25 it was still 2:00.

I put the phone face down. I told myself she was bathing, or the phone was on charge, or she had kept it inside the almirah while she slept the way she had said she could not sleep.

At 2:40 it was still 2:00.

At 3:30, when the afternoon tea trolley passed our row and someone asked if I wanted cutting chai, it was still 2:00.

That was when the worry changed shape.

She had said in the morning, maybe she would sleep. She had also said once she bathed, sleep would not come. So which sentence was true now?

If she was sleeping, the last seen could stay still. People sleep with the phone under the pillow and do not touch it. She had done that many nights.

But Azad Sahab would not leave her so easily. Last night he had said the waiting was bullshit. He had said tomorrow he was not asking. He had said he would make up for the days. A man who speaks like that does not sit on the chair and watch a woman nap.

Unless she was truly that tired.

Sleep had not come for her last night. I had seen it on her face. Dark under the eyes. The way she packed the boxes with flour on her nighty, dedicated and slow. If he had come, how would she manage him today? Would she tell him she is tired? Would he listen? Last night he had not liked being postponed.

I stared at the last seen as if it would move if I stared enough.

It did not.

2:00 PM.

I tried to give the frozen time ordinary meanings. Phone battery dead. Phone left in the bathroom. Phone on silent under a pillow. Network in our building sometimes dropped for no reason; the lift motor and the old wiring made strange things happen. I told myself all of that. None of it sat properly. She charged the phone every night. She did not leave it in the bathroom. She had been online every few minutes from morning until two. A person does not go from that rhythm to zero unless the hands are busy or the body is away from the phone on purpose.

I put the phone in the drawer for ten minutes. Then I took it out again. Still 2:00.

The module in front of me was simple. I made it look finished. Inside, I was only doing one calculation. If he went up at two, he could still be there at four. If he went up at two, the phone would not move. If she was under him, she would not check WhatsApp. If she was asleep beside him, she would not check WhatsApp. Both pictures lived in the same last seen.

The floor had women. It had always had women. I had never made a habit of watching them. Project talk, lift talk, that was all.

Today my eyes went anyway.

Not first to the girls near my age. There were two in the next cluster, both newly joined, both in jeans and simple tops, both laughing at something on a phone. I saw them and felt almost nothing. The strange part was the other direction.

I looked longer at the older ones.

A woman from accounts, maybe fourty- forty-two, in a cream kurti, standing at the printer. A team lead from the far side, late thirties, hair tied, speaking to a man with her arms folded, the blouse sitting close on her when she breathed. I did not know their names well. I still looked. The looking had a reason I did not like. After months of watching Ma’s neckline change, after last night’s kitchen, after this morning’s dream, my eyes had learned a shape. Full. Settled. A body that had already lived a life. The younger girls looked unfinished next to that. I felt the wrongness of the thought and I still did not stop the thought.

Then I saw Nair ma’am.

She is HR. She interviewed me in June, in a small cabin with a glass wall. I remember her questions more than I remember my answers. Why this company. Why this city. Are you comfortable with shifts if needed. She had been strict and also easy in the same conversation. Extrovert. She laughed once when I said I was not much of a social person, and then she wrote something on her pad.

She is around thirty-eight or forty. Married. There is a small ring she never removes. She is fit in a way office women who walk and eat less are fit. Dusky skin. Not fair. Nowhere close to Ma in the face. Ma’s face is softer. Ma’s body is heavier in the chest and hips. Nair ma’am is tighter, more held in. Still, the body, curves and fullness are there. She wears clothes that fit. Not vulgar. Fashionable. Today it was a rust-coloured fitted kurti and black trousers that sat close on her hips. The kurti had a neck that was not low, but the cloth was not loose either. When she walked, the shape was clear.

She moved across our floor in the afternoon. She stopped at two senior desks. She spoke, smiled, checked something on her tab, and moved again. People sat up a little when she came. Strictness does that. Then she went back toward her cabin at the end of the corridor, the one with the frosted glass and her name on a small plate.

I watched her till the cabin door closed.

I did not imagine her the way I had imagined Ma. I only noticed that my eyes had chosen her over the girls, and that the choice said something about the months at home that I did not want to say in words.

I went back to the screen.

Last seen: 2:00 PM.

By five I had packed the smaller work.

The delivery pressure was still in the air, but my part for the day was in the folder. I put the empty tiffin boxes into the bag. I checked the phone again. 

Still 2:00 PM.

Three hours without a touch. In our house that was not normal. She used the phone too much now. Messages. Reels. His chat. Even on Saturday when she stayed in, the screen had kept lighting. A last seen frozen at two meant either sleep or a room where the phone had been put face down and left.

I opened the maps app. Traffic toward home was showing less time than usual. Twenty five minutes. Sometimes it was forty - forty-five. If I left now I could reach before five thirty. Fairly earlier than usual timing of six-six thirty.

I stood. I slung the bag. I was almost at the lift lobby when my phone rang.

Mr. Sinha.

“Sunny. Have you left?”

“I am at the lift, sir.”

“There is a file the client asked for. Old logs. Can you pull them and send if you have not gone down yet. It will not take long. I don’t want to look for someone else now.”

Friday sat in the request. The wrong numbers. The cabin. You are not fully here today.

“I have not left, sir. I will do it.”

“Good. Send it to me and to the shared mail. Then you can go.”

I went back to the desk. Rohan had already left. Vikram was shutting his laptop and raised his eyebrows.

“Forgot something?”

“Sir wants a file.”

“Ah. Delivery week.” He picked up his bag and left.

The task was small. It was also buried. Old folder names. Wrong dates. A log that should have been tagged and was not. I found it. I checked it. I zipped it. I mailed it. I waited for the sent confirmation. Mr. Sinha replied with one line: received.

One hour gone.

The clock on the corner of the screen said 6:02.

I left.

The basement smelled of hot engines. My bike was where I had left it. I strapped the tiffin, put the helmet on, and rolled up the ramp into the evening.

Traffic had increased.

The maps had been honest at five and were lying now. The signal near the metro held a long chain of brake lights. A bus blocked the left lane. Scooters tried to slip through and failed. I kept the engine steady and the questions moving.

Would he have left by now?

Six o’clock was late for an afternoon visit if he wanted to be downstairs before the building filled. Ammi would be awake again. The maid was still not back. He had a shop, another building, calls. A man like that does not stay till night on a Monday unless he decides to.

What would have happened.

The sentence did not stay clean. Kiss. Smooch. The hotel mouth. The dream. The closed last seen. I saw our bed in the daylight that would have been in the room at two and three and four. I saw the thin curtain. I saw the windows. I saw her phone on the folding table, unused.

A car horn behind me made me move. I had been sitting after the light turned green.

The flyover was slower than morning. The station road was worse. I did not check the phone at signals because putting one foot down and taking the phone out with the helmet on was stupid. I wanted to. I did not.

At one signal I could not help it. I pulled the phone out under the helmet strap and unlocked it with one thumb. Last seen still 2:00 PM. No new message. No missed call. If she had finished and wanted to look normal, she would have at least opened the app. The frozen time meant the afternoon was still sitting on the phone, or she had not yet become the woman who sends okay and folded hands.

A man on the next bike looked at me holding the phone at a green light. I put it away and moved.

By the time our lane came into view the sky was the colour of early night, not late evening. Shop lights were on. The vegetable vendor was still calling. I turned into the compound at 7:05.

I parked in the usual strip.

That was when the other feeling started.

Two children were still kicking a ball. The watchman was on his chair. A woman from the second floor was crossing with a milk bag. A man I did not know well was locking a scooter. None of them said my name. None of them pointed. And still I felt as if every person passing was looking at me with a sentence already prepared.

We know.

We heard.

She was loud.

He stayed long.

Your mother.

I removed the helmet. The compound air was warmer than the road. I locked the bike. I stood for a second with the tiffin bag in my hand and looked at the windows of our floor. The grill was dark from here. I could not tell if the tube light was on.

Was he still upstairs?

If I opened the door and found him, what would I do. Nod. Say namaste. Put the bag down. Wait for him to leave. Speak. Not speak. The acceptance I had given on Thursday was for the truth, not for a script. I had no line ready for a man standing in our room at ten to seven with my mother’s smell on him.

I walked toward the stairs.

[V1star]

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