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

[Authorsunny]

Chapter 27 – Wednesday (continued)  
3 December 2025 – Wednesday

She turned the glass in her hands. The purple polish caught the grill light. She looked at the glass, then at me, then at the dead phone still black on the charger.

“So it all started when we both…”

My phone rang.

The sound cut the sentence in half. Too loud for this room. The cheap tone I have not changed since joining. The screen said Rohan.

Office.

I looked at it. I could not avoid it. In delivery week a call from the cluster at this hour is not a joke about tea. It is a file, a client line, a *where are you*.

“Take it, beta,” Ma said. The smile closed. The story closed with it. “It must be work.”

I stood and walked two steps toward the window because that is what I do when the house is small and a call needs a little air.

“Yes, Rohan.”

Rohan started with the evening meeting. Which sheet. Which log. Whether Sinha sir wanted the old numbers or the revised ones. I said the names of files. I said yes. I said I had put it in the shared folder.

While I spoke I watched Ma.

She had got up.

She went to my charger first. She picked up her phone with both hands like it might break. She pressed the side button.

This time it turned on.

The Samsung logo. The slow load. The screen coming alive with that cheap brightness. Her face changed at once. Happy. Relief so clear it made her look younger for a second. She turned the glass toward me and showed it, eyes wide, mouth open on a smile, as if I had fixed a person and not a battery.

I nodded, still on the call.

She unlocked it.

I saw the face after the unlock.

Not happy.

Pale.

The kind of pale that comes when a screen is too full. Missed calls stacked. Messages stacked. A name at the top that I did not need to read from across the room.

A little panic.

She was already moving. Kitchen. The curtain rings. She was dialling before the curtain had even fallen back. I heard the tone. I heard her breath.

Rohan was still talking. I said yes twice and ended it as soon as the sheet names were done.

“I will be leaving in ten minutes,” I told him.

I cut.

The house was quiet except for her voice in the kitchen.

I wanted the other side of that face.

I did not go to the kitchen door. I sat back on the chair as if I was only finishing tea. The folding table is close enough. The curtain is not a wall. In this flat a person who wants to hear, hears.

She was already on the line.

His voice leaked first as a scbang. Then it came through.

“The whole night, Anjali. Dead. What do you mean dead. I called. I called again. I sat with this phone in my hand like a fool. What is this?”

“Azad Sahab, its the battery,” she said, quick, already small. “I put it on charge, I swear. Whole night. Morning also it was not coming. I thought it will come after some time. Sunny also tried. He put it on his charger. Then only it opened just now—”

“Don’t give me charger stories.” The bark was short. “Evening also I tried. Two times. It ringed, but there was no callback. What is this. You disappear for hours and then you come with a battery excuse. I was about to come upstairs at night. I stopped myself. You should thank that I stopped. Next time I will not stop Anjali.”

Evening.

Yesterday evening. When she had been on her stomach with balm. When the phone had lit on the sheet and died in my hand. When I had put it back and not plugged it.

“I know you got angry,” she said. She did not raise her voice. “It was the phone. Not me. Please trust me Azad Sahab, would I switch it off on purpose? Think once.”

“You wait for my messages. That is what you told me. Then why was it dead when I wanted you. I waited downstairs. Don’t talk to me like I am the milkman asking for last month’s bill.”

“No Azad Sahab, I am sorry if it came out that way…..also, last night I slept early. Back was paining from morning. I put balm. I thought I will only lie down for some time. Then sleep came. I did not even hear. You know how I am when sleep comes in the day. Like somebody switched me off. I didn’t do it purposely, Azad Sahab.”

“Back.” He said the word as if he was tasting it. “You slept with a dead phone because of your back. Then you should have called me. I would have arranged a doctor. What kind of stupid behaviour is this. Back is paining and the phone is dead. Am I some stranger. I am the man who was inside you yesterday and you cannot pick a call.”

She lowered her voice further.

“Don’t ask about the back as if you don’t know. From yesterday only it started. After you. You held me in that position for so long. You didn’t let me turn when I said it was too deep. And then you are asking why I slept….”

A small pause and then she said giggling “You were the reason for the back pain…hehe”

The giggle was low. Private. It did not belong on top of a doctor sentence.

From the other side I heard the change. A breath. The anger did not vanish. It sat closer.

“So now you remember. Yesterday you were saying take, take, don’t stop. Today you are saying back pain. You can take a man like that in the afternoon and then you cannot keep a phone alive. Say it properly. Say your back is hurting because I used you the way I wanted.”

She turned her face toward the fridge wall, away from my side of the curtain.

“Please. I said am sorry Azad Sahab. I didn’t do it intentionally. It will not repeat, I promise. I will keep it on charge. Next to me. I am telling you.”

A whisper after that. I leaned half an inch. The chair did not creak. He said something which I couldn't hear properly. 

“I will accept the punishment.” Another giggle, smaller, caught in the throat. “offoo…shhhh…don’t say like that when I am in the kitchen. He is outside only. He can hear if you speak like that.”

“Let him hear. He has been hearing for weeks. You think the boy is a statue. I don't care.”

She whispered again.

“Offoo, please Azad Sahab, don't talk like that about him…”

Then a pause from her side. She was listening. Her fingers were on the edge of the counter. I could see that much through the thin curtain. The light green blouse. The bare arm. The gold bangle.

He was speaking, I could only hear the noise, but couldn't make out what was he speaking exactly.

“At six?” Ma said in the phone surprisingly. The worry was instant, but the voice stayed low. “It will get late then, Azad Sahab. Sunny will be home before we come back, how can I…”

The other side did not like that sentence.

“You have come to me so many times with the boy sitting in that house. Did you forget the celebration night and day after? Did you forget the monday? Are you that naive to pretend that the boy didn't notice anything when he entered the room? Comeon Anjali, what new drama is this. It is your job to handle your son. If you cannot handle him, I will come upstairs and explain it to Sunny in my own way. I will tell him what his mother is. I will tell him who she belongs to. The boy will listen then. He already looks at you. He already knows. Don’t use him as a lock on my time.”

“Accha ji… ok ok. First calm down. I am not saying no. When have I said no. I am only saying that…..”

A breath.

“Anyways, but even if we go, I don’t even have proper clothes. The ones I have won’t look right there. I should at least match the status of others around.”

I saw her face sideways through the curtain. She smiled. Small. Toned down.

Then she whispered. Then she nodded, as if he could see the nod through the phone.

Then I could again hear his voice.

“I want to see you in black. Deep neck sleeveless matching blouse. And buy a new wired bra too. The one that pushes you up. Understood?.”

“Wired one? Why so much of obsession with it? It hurts, na. The underwire sits wrong the whole time. It leaves a mark. You know it already. Still you insist.”

“That is what I like. I like leaving marks on you. You said you will accept the punishment, treat this as your punishment, haha. Wear it. If it hurts, it hurts.”

“Azad…”

It was not a no.

“Okay, okay, I’ll wear it. Don’t start again. Black saree. That bra. I understood.”

I looked at the wall clock.

It had been more than fifteen minutes since Rohan’s call. If I sat more I would actually be late.

I got up, even though I wanted to hear further.

The chair made the sound.

The bag went onto my shoulder. The tiffin was already packed from the roti box — two rotis, the dry sabzi, pickle. I had not even seen her close the lid. It was on the table. I took it.

The sound made her glance back once from the kitchen. For one second her face was still the phone face. Soft mouth. Colour on the cheek. 

“Drive safely, beta,” she said, the phone still at her ear, the mother-voice put on top of the other one.

“I’ll message when I reach.”

“Yes.”

I was at the door when the bell rang.

Short. Ordinary. The same cheap sound this house has used for years.

From the kitchen she did not move. She did not even turn. The phone was still at her ear. She was still saying something low — “you are so naughty… yes… I know how you like the pallu…” — as if the bell belonged to another building.

I opened the door.

The same boy as yesterday. Thin. Sixteen or seventeen. Small black polythene in his hand. The smell came up before he spoke. Skin. Bone. Red-white flesh.

I already knew.

“Money is already paid,” he said. 

Behind me her voice went on in the kitchen, unaware.

I took the polythene with two fingers.

I did not look inside. I did not need to.

I turned, walked to the folding table, and dropped it there. The bag made a small, wet sound on the wood, next to the two steel glasses and the dead charger wire.

The boy was already going down the stairs. His slippers slapped the steps.

I picked up my bag again.

She still had not come out. The curtain was still a curtain. The giggle was still in her throat.

I walked out and pulled the door from outside.

The compound had the usual morning. Milk. A scooter. The watchman on his chair with tea.

The strip where the white sedan stands was empty.

Azad had already gone.

[V1star]

Update after update...auther sunny is on 

[picchimanishi]

I really like the way how this story is progressing. Author has put his best to hook with this story. Thank you so much. This story is going to be one of the best stories I read in this forum. Please stick to your way of writing style. Consider others' suggestions if they are helpful your plot. But don't give up ideas for those ideas which may alter your narration.

[V1star]

Bro...azad maintains his calm ,behaves subtle when Sunitha episode happened,and infront of ammi, even infront of sunny also ok ok...but it seems he is very desperate to do it infront of sunny and dominate Anjali and sunny both like Monday morning dream episode.
My curiosity is will he humiliate sunny. If it happens then how would sunny and Anjali takes it.

[V1star]

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[V1star]

Bro...azad maintains his calm ,behaves subtle when Sunitha episode happened,and infront of ammi, even infront of sunny also ok ok...but it seems he is very desperate to do it infront of sunny and dominate Anjali and sunny both like Monday morning dream episode.
My curiosity is will he humiliate sunny. If it happens then how would sunny and Anjali takes it.

For some time I want to see azad and sunny getting to know each other.
I wish he don't behave rude all of sudden and dominate them.
And I also feel that domination(taking on Anjali infront of sunny) should appear gradually...
If at all it happens when azad on high (alcohol) etc...a sudden situation.

[Tea_Kadai_Boy]

I don't know what to say. It's one of the ultimate. The latest parts went beyond something I never imagined. Anjali had a different dimension, when she spoke of his adulthood and the reason sunny should have a girlfriend. She is matured enough to know a mother also attracts a adult son in a cramped room and close living. The heat sunny caught is natural. The scenes of nude Anjali is erotically great.  Losing herself completely to Landlord is another dimension of her. According to her he is a complicated and perfect person and overbearing.
The writing- short and simple sentences, not telling but showing which left everything to imagination along with the environment, is addictively excellent. Though it looks like slow burner, in reality it a charging Vande Bharat train. All three characters are pitiable and understandable.
As to your previous reply to my comment, my reply is not a criticism, because there is no wrong in that part, and which was immensely great in its own way. It's an imaginary riot.  One of the readers @spica308 had correctly interpreted it. It's just only my suggestion and expectation, that you could well ignore it and need not explained it.

[V1star]

Reason for Anjali's back pain.

[Authorsunny]

I don't know what to say. It's one of the ultimate. The latest parts went beyond something I never imagined. Anjali had a different dimension, when she spoke of his adulthood and the reason sunny should have a girlfriend. She is matured enough to know a mother also attracts a adult son in a cramped room and close living. The heat sunny caught is natural. The scenes of nude Anjali is erotically great.  Losing herself completely to Landlord is another dimension of her. According to her he is a complicated and perfect person and overbearing.
The writing- short and simple sentences, not telling but showing which left everything to imagination along with the environment, is addictively excellent. Though it looks like slow burner, in reality it a charging Vande Bharat train. All three characters are pitiable and understandable.
As to your previous reply to my comment, my reply is not a criticism, because there is no wrong in that part, and which was immensely great in its own way. It's an imaginary riot.  One of the readers @spica308 had correctly interpreted it. It's just only my suggestion and expectation, that you could well ignore it and need not explained it.

Thank you, Tea_Kadai_Boy. I really value this.

My aim is a long story — a novel, not a rush of scenes. Things should not jump out of nowhere. Characters should not flip overnight. The house, the money, the affair, the heat — all of it has to move at a pace that feels real enough to believe.

That is the only test I keep for myself. If a reader can stay with it and still remember the people later, the work is doing its job.

Your earlier note was never criticism for me. It was a suggestion. I can take it or leave it. 

Thank you for reading it this closely.

[Authorsunny]

host images for online profiles

Thank you, V1star. The photos help. They keep the house, the clothes, and the faces in the same room as the writing.

I see the effort you put into imagining the scenes properly instead of throwing random pictures. That kind of reading matters on a long story like this.

[Authorsunny]

Chapter 27 – Wednesday (continued)
3 December 2025 – Wednesday

I put the helmet on and rolled out.

The first two minutes on the road were only traffic and the tiffin hook tapping the side. Then the kitchen voice came back. Not the mother voice. The other one. The one that had gone small and then giggled into the phone while I was still tying my shoes.

Six.

Black saree. Deep neck. Sleeveless matching blouse. Wired bra that pushes up. If it hurts, it hurts.

The words sat in the helmet with the engine noise. I kept seeing the light green blouse from the morning, the way the neck had opened when she leaned for the charger, the gold chain falling into that line. Now he wanted black. Not house black. The other black. The kind that makes a room look different the moment the pallu is pinned.

Were they going out.

Or was he coming up.

The meeting I had told her about was real. Sinha sir, evening, delivery discussion. I had not invented the late stay. Now those hours had a time attached to them. Six. And I would still be in a conference room when six came.

A tempo cut in front. I braked. The tiffin jumped. Potato and jeera. Ordinary food in a steel box while the other food — the black cloth, the wired thing, the “I will accept the punishment” — was being planned in the same kitchen where she had hummed after the headwash.

I reached office later than I liked. Card. Nod. Lift. Fourth floor. The east windows were already holding that hard white light.

Rohan was at his desk with two screens open. Vikram had a sheet printed and folded like a map. Sameer waved once and went back to his call. The morning looked like every other delivery-week morning.

It did not feel like one.

I opened the laptop. The module from yesterday was clean. Comments were waiting. I started typing and the words came, but they came from a shallower place. Under them the other pictures kept walking in. The towel at her upper thighs. The lotion on her own ass. The side of the breast when the arm went up. Then the phone call. His bark. Her giggle. Six o’clock. Black.

I checked last seen at 10:21.

Online.

Then 10:47.

Then 11:03.

Moving. Not frozen like Monday. Hands on the phone. Cooking, maybe. Messaging, maybe. Waiting.

I put the phone face down and still picked it up again after twelve minutes.

Nair ma’am walked past the row at 11:40.

I smelled her before I fully saw her. Not the heavy perfume some of the other women wore. Something cleaner, sharper, like lemon and cloth that has been ironed. She was in a white shirt and a black skirt today. The shirt was tucked. The skirt sat at the knee. Formal. Office formal. But the way she walked made the formal look like a choice, not a uniform.

She stopped two desks ahead, spoke to someone from accounts, then turned.

I thought she would pass.

She did not.

She came back and stood at the side of my desk, one hand on the partition.

“Sunny.”

I looked up. The screen light was still on my face.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“How is it going. Everything alright?”

Her voice was even. Professional. The same voice from the interview months ago, only a little warmer now that I was no longer a candidate sitting opposite a file.

“It’s fine, ma’am. A bit tight on the timelines, but manageable.”

She nodded. Her other hand went to her hair, tucked a strand behind her ear, then came down again. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. The skirt moved with it. A small, ordinary habit. I had seen her do it in the corridor before. Today it sat closer.

“I haven’t really spoken to you after you joined,” she said. “Interviews get so rushed. Then people disappear into their teams. How was celebration? You took leave, right?”

“Yes, ma’am. Four days. Went alright. Home only.”

“Good. Family time is needed. These delivery weeks eat everything otherwise.”

She smiled. Not a big smile. The kind that stays in the eyes a second longer than the mouth.

I tried to keep my eyes on her face.

They did not stay there.

The shirt was buttoned properly. No party neck. No house neck like the green blouse at breakfast. Still, when she leaned a little on the partition to look at my screen without actually reading it, the fabric pulled. The line between the third and fourth button opened enough to show the start of the valley. Not the heavy deep line I had watched on the bed that morning. Narrower. Neater. A different darkness. The kind that belongs to a woman who leaves the house knowing she will be looked at under tube lights and still chooses the shirt.

I looked away at the keyboard, then at the window, then back because looking only at the keyboard for too long also looks like something.

She was still talking.

“In your interview,” she said, “there was one round where most candidates went blank on the scenario question. You didn’t. You took a second, then you walked through it like you had already lived inside the problem. That is why I pushed for you. Not because the marks were highest. Because the thinking was clean. Don’t forget that when the work gets noisy. I chose you by realising your potential. Hope you would not prove me wrong.” followed by a wide smile.

The words landed in a place that had been empty since morning.

I felt my shoulders drop half an inch.

“Thank you, ma’am. I will definitely not let you down ma'am.”

“Anytime. If there is any HR thing — leave, policy, even if someone is making the floor difficult — you can walk to my cabin. Don’t wait for it to become a mail.”

She touched her hair again. The same small movement. Then she stepped back, gave a short nod, and went toward her cabin.

The lemon-iron smell stayed for a few seconds after she left.

Rohan turned his chair.

“Nair ma’am standing at your desk for that long? What happened. She doesn’t do that with everyone.”

Vikram looked over the partition, eyebrows up.

I shrugged. “Just asking about the week. celebration leave. Normal.”

They waited for more. I did not give more. I opened a comment thread and started typing as if the screen had become suddenly urgent.

For twenty minutes the house receded.

I knew I had potential. I had never been the topper. Teachers used to like me because I submitted on time and did not make noise. Nair ma’am’s sentence — *I chose you by realising your potential. Hope you would not prove me wrong.* — sat in the chest like a warm coin. The butterflies were stupid and I still felt them. The way she had played with her hair. The smile that stayed. The shirt line.

Was she only being HR.

Or was the talk smoother because she had chosen me that day and still remembered the choosing.

I waved the thought off the way you wave smoke. It came back anyway, mixed with the other thought, the heavier one. Black saree. Six o’clock. Wired bra. The two pictures did not belong in the same head and they still sat together.

After lunch the house returned fully.

I ate the dry sabzi at the desk. Sameer passed, said home food, grinned, moved on. I checked last seen.

Recent.

She was on the phone, or the phone was in her hand. Cooking the second tiffin maybe. Chicken again, from the morning polythene. 

At around four I put the phone in my pocket and left it there.

The five o’clock meeting was in the bigger conference room. Sinha sir had the deck. Client on the speaker. Shared screen. My module was three slides in a forty-slide story.

The first twenty minutes were normal. Numbers. Dates. The usual polite push.

Then the client’s voice changed.

Timelines. The original ones. The ones we had already moved once. He did not like the second move. His English got faster. Files started changing hands across the table — printed sheets, a pen passed too hard, someone pulling a laptop closer. Sinha sir’s jaw tightened. Rohan took notes like the pen might save the room. I answered when my part came. My voice stayed even. The numbers were right. That was all I had.

For almost two hours the house did not enter.

No last seen. No black cloth. No six o’clock. Only the speaker, the slides, the client saying the word *unacceptable* twice, and then the slower walk-back of dates that still did not make him happy.

The main call ended near seven.

Sinha sir did not let us stand up immediately. He kept the team for another few minutes. Revised timelines. No extra drama in his voice, only the tired firmness of a man who has to carry the client’s anger down to the desks. Work hard. Stick. No slippage on the new dates.

We nodded. We said yes. We packed.

I stepped into the corridor and the morning talk hit me the way a smell hits when you open a closed fridge.

Six.

It was already past seven.

I took the phone out.

Last seen 4:32 p.m.

Four-thirty.

After that, nothing.

Had she slept again.

Had he come up.

Had they left.

The sedan would tell me something, but the sedan was thirty five minutes of traffic away.

I put the helmet on in the basement. The tiffin box was empty now. Only the steel smell. I joined the road.

Mumbai at this hour is not a road. It is a long argument between bikes and buses and the same red lights that do not care that a person is late in his own house. I kept seeing the kitchen curtain from the morning, her bare back, the lotion, then the phone at her ear, then the sentence *at six*. The helmet made my own breath loud.

I reached the society a little after eight.

The strip where the white sedan stands was empty.

The heartbeat missed once, the same stupid miss as when I had opened the dustbin on Monday.

Where.

She had not even messaged. In June she used to message if the milkman was late. Now a whole evening could leave the house and the phone could stay quiet. How does a person change like that in six months. The question had no useful answer. It only made the hands tighter on the grip.

Our third-floor window was showing light.

Light does not mean a body is inside. Light can be left on by a woman who is already in a car, already in black, already somewhere a son is not supposed to picture.

I parked. I took the bag. I started up.

On the stairs between second and third I crossed the girl from the fourth floor. College girl. Dupatta, backpack, the usual evening face. For months she had given that small courtesy smile people give when they pass the same landing every day.

Today she looked at the step in front of her and went past as if I were a wet patch on the concrete.

I did not stop. I did not have a sentence for a smile that had been taken back.

Our floor.

I already had the keys in my hand. I was two steps from the door, ready to put the key in, when I heard it.

Payal.

Not the hurried Monday-night payal. The ordinary silver sound, but moving. And under it the rustle of bags. Plastic. Paper. The soft crush of something being folded or shifted.

She was home.

The relief came first, cheap and fast. Then the other thing. Monday had also started with a door and a body on the other side of it. Six o’clock had been spoken into a phone in this same house. I was already a little sweaty under the formal shirt. Standing in a closed stairwell does that, and the mind does the rest.

I did not use the key.

I rang the bell.

The payal stopped for a second. Then it came toward the wood.

The door opened.

Same light green blouse. Same saree from the morning. Head towel gone now, hair open and a little flattened on one side as if she had been bending and straightening for a while. Kajal still there, slightly smudged at the outer corner. Gold chain. Silver bracelet. Payal.

Sweat at the temple.

I looked at her neck.

No new mark.

I looked at the line of the blouse where it sat on her chest.

No dark bloom that the morning light had not already shown. The skin looked only like morning skin that had spent a day in a small flat.

Confusion sat in the throat. If six o’clock had been a going-out, the black would be on her. If six o’clock had been him coming up, the room would smell different and the walk would be different. Neither thing was on her face. Only heat and a kind of hurry.

The smell that came out with her was not balm and not the other smell from Monday.

[Farz@123]

Wow waiting for original suspense

[Authorsunny]

Chapter 27 – Wednesday (continued)
3 December 2025 – Wednesday

The smell that came out with her was not balm and not the other smell from Monday.

New cloth.

Starch and shop and that faint chemical sweetness packets have when they have just been opened.

“Beta, good that you came,” she said. The mother-voice was back, but it was running. “I was about to call you only. We need to go to the market quickly. I need to give the blouse for stitching. The tailor will close by nine. We have to leave now. I am sorry, I am bothering you after office, but please. Azad ji is also not home, otherwise I would have asked him. I was trying Rapido. No one is accepting. You know the traffic.”

I stepped in.

Near the folding table there were bags.

Three.

One was from a saree house whose name I had only seen on those shiny boards near Linking Road, the kind of place where a single pallu costs more than our monthly ration. The bag was thick paper, gold lettering, already empty and sitting open.

One was from a cosmetics counter. Smaller. Black and white. Also empty.

One was from a footwear brand I knew only from mall windows. Heels. Sandals. The bag had that stiff shape shops use so the box inside does not look cheap. Empty too.

Nothing left inside any of them that I could see. Only the names. The cost sitting on the table without the things.

She was already wrapping the empty bags, the old habit, folding them into smaller rectangles to keep for later. Onion, cobwebs, a wet umbrella — she stored bags the way other people store boxes. The wrapping told me the contents had already been taken out. Almirah, probably. Shelf behind the hanging blouses. Or the top of the steel trunk. I did not open anything. I only stood with the office bag still on my shoulder and the three expensive names on the wood.

She would not have bought these on house contribution alone. The thought arrived complete. Azad Sahab. Gift. Or instruction. Black saree. Matching blouse piece. Wired bra from the cosmetics bag, maybe. Heels that would make the payal sound different on a floor that was not ours.

For what.

The six o’clock thing. Or something after. Or both.

“Ohhh, ok Ma. Give me two minutes, I will just wash my face.” I said.

“Quickly, beta. Really quickly.”

The bathroom was still holding a little of the morning steam and the shampoo smell. I washed, changed the shirt for the house one, left the formal pants on because we were going out again. When I came out she was already near the door with a regular cloth bag in her hand. Folded.

“Ma, why so much hurry,” I said. “Can’t this wait for tomorrow?”

She cut across it the way she cuts across a pot that is about to boil over.

“I will tell you later. Now just come. If there is traffic we will miss him.”

No space for the next question.

We went down.

She sat on the bike the old way, one-sided, feet to the left, one hand on my shoulder. Not the tight hold of a person who is afraid of the road. The practical hold of a person who has sat like this for years and still does it when the auto does not come. The light green blouse was close to my back. I felt the warmth of her through the shirt when the bike leaned at the first turning.

On the stairs she had already told me the location of the shop. Not her usual tailor near the station road, the one who had stitched her old blouses for ten years and still used the same chalk. This was another market. Further. The kind people name when they want the cloth to look like it belongs to a different income.

Helmet on. Engine. Lane.

Talking properly was not possible. Wind. Horns. The helmet’s own echo.

At a red light I heard her phone.

She had taken it out with the hand that was not on my shoulder.

“Yes,” she said. “Sunny came. I left with him.”

A pause. The light stayed red.

“You please call the tailor shop. Tell him to keep the shop a little more time. If you call personally he will not deny.”

A small sound from her throat. A giggle, short, caught, the same private one from the morning kitchen.

Then, after he must have said something:

“I have given the tiffin to Ammi downstairs. I made chicken again. A little differently. Dry one. Hope you will like it.”

The light turned. She ended the call. 

Chicken again. Dry. For the same mouth that had told her to wear the wired thing until it left a mark.

I followed the map.

Four or five kilometres. On a Sunday morning it would have been fifteen minutes. On a Wednesday at this hour it became fourty. Buses, a digging stretch, a signal that stayed red as if it had forgotten the other colour. That is Mumbai. Distance is not kilometres. Distance is how many times the clutch hand gets tired.

We reached a little after nine-ten.

She pointed to a spot near a shuttered fabric shop. I parked. The market was not a mall. Ground floor mostly cloth shops still open, first floor the other things — tailors, jewellery, a couple of footwear shops, a shop that sold only blouse pieces and latkans. Dense. Lights still on.

We walked.

“Beta, you eat something if you want,” she said. “You must be hungry. I will take fifteen-twenty minutes and call you. Wait near the bike only. ok?”

She looked at her phone to check the time.

The glass was black.

She pressed the side. Pressed it longer. Chuckled once, tired and familiar.

“Huhh. This phone. Again. You wait at the bike after eating. I will finish and come here only.”

I had been ready to find a stall and eat alone. The stomach had been empty for long. Then the dead phone and the new market and the black piece in her bag sat together. Fifteen minutes in a place I did not know, with a phone that had already died twice today, felt like leaving a door unlatched.

“I’ll come with you,” I said. “It’s only fifteen minutes. On the way back we can stop. Pani puri, pav bhaji, whatever is open.”

Her face changed. The hurry loosened by one notch. A real smile, the old one, the one that used to come when I agreed to orange ice-candy after tuition.

“It’s been long,” she said. “Both of us eating from outside. Yes. We’ll do that.”

She adjusted the bag on her wrist. 

We climbed the one flight to the first floor.

The tailor shop was at the end of the corridor, light still falling on the measuring table, a man in a vest looking at the clock and then at the door as if he had already decided to pull the shutter and then decided to wait because a call had come from a number that mattered.

Ma walked in first.

I followed her in.

[Paty@123]

She has become more submissive to Azad, and she may allow him even when sunny there in the room,

[Paty@123]

Author early updates are appreciated

[V1star]

Black saree,black blouse....
Anjali the woman in the BLACK.

[V1star]

[Tea_Kadai_Boy]

Can Nair mam's word that sunny has the potential to walk through a problem like he lived inside the problem, become prophetic. Can sunny really think clearly and cleanly. Let's see how it goes. The six o clock became more ominous and mysterious. The latest updates are on fire. Thanks.

[byteson]

Loving where the story trajectory is going. As the power exchange between Anjali and Azad gets more and more skewed, chances of Azad Sahab taking his Anjali right in front of Sunny increase. As time goes on, Sunny will realize what Anjali has already - who is the Man of the House.

[Authorsunny]

Chapter 27 – Wednesday
3 December 2025 – Wednesday

The tailor shop was not a shop in the way I understood shops.

Our old one near the station road was a ten-by-ten box. One bulb. Chalk dust on a wooden table. A bench that pinched the thigh if you sat too long. The man there never looked up from the machine until the money was on the cloth. This place had space the way Azad Sahab’s hall had space. Two long cutting tables. Wall racks with rolls standing like people — silk, georgette, a dark velvet that ate the light. Three full-length mirrors with white tubes above them, the kind of light that does not forgive a crease or a mark. Two mannequins in finished party blouses. One with a back so open the spine was the design. The other with a sweetheart neck that held the chest up as if the cloth itself had hands. A small AC in the corner was actually cooling. The air smelled of new cloth and tailor’s soap and a thin stick of incense near the cash drawer. Our whole flat could have sat in the middle of this room and still left a corridor.

Ma walked in first. I followed.

A woman was at the counter finishing payment. Late thirties, maybe. Hair tied clean. A black handbag that did not look like our market bags. She spoke in English the way some people speak it in this city — not showing off, just the language that comes when the shop and the purse belong to the same world.

“You’ve kept the lining soft this time, right? Last time it scratched near the armhole.”

The owner nodded, already counting.

She paid. I heard the number before I wanted to hear it. Two thousand eight hundred. For one blouse. Stitching. Not the cloth. Only the work. The boy slid the packet across. She said thank you, checked the hooks once through the packet with two fingers, and left. The door chime was soft. After her the shop felt even larger.

The owner was around sixty. Thin. Glasses on a string against his vest. Measuring tape already hanging on his neck like a second chain. He looked at her and his face changed from closing-time to known-customer.

“Come, madam. Sahab called. I was about to shut.”

Sahab. The word sat in the cooled air the same way it sat in our kitchen.

“Namaste Mukesh ji, I know I am late,” Ma said. Her voice went a little smaller, the polite size she used with people who sat above our old life. “Thank you for keeping it open.”

“For you I have to keep it open.” He smiled with one side of his mouth. Not cheap. Comfortable. They knew each other. That was the thing. This was not a first walk-in with a piece from a local bag. The comfort was already in the room.

Then his eyes went past her and found me. Not unkind. Just unused to a third person on this particular visit.

“And the boy?” he asked.

Ma glanced back as if she had only now remembered I had a face.

“My son,” she said. “Sunny. I could not get an auto. Traffic is bad, no one was accepting. I had to ask him to bring me.”

Mukesh nodded once, the way men nod when a son has been named and can now sit in the corner.

“Sit, beta…”

“Chotu, give them water”

A boy of eighteen or nineteen came from behind the second table with two paper cups.

“Water, madam?”

“No,” Ma said. “We are in a hurry.”

I took mine. The water was cold. It went down and made the bike-sweat on my back feel suddenly louder. I crushed the cup slowly so the sound would not be a sound. I sat on the stool Mukesh pointed to, slightly behind her left shoulder. Close enough to see the table. Far enough to look like a son waiting. I took out my phone because a person sitting with empty hands in a shop like this looks like he is staring. The screen came on. I did not read it.

Ma put the cloth bag on the cutting table. She opened it the way she opened tiffin lids at home — sure, no drama — and took out the black piece.

Even folded it had weight. Soft shine. Not the local-market black that becomes grey after two washes. This black held itself. She spread it with both palms. The purple polish on her fingers looked darker against it. Same polish as Monday. Same hands that had gone over her own skin in the kitchen this morning.

“This is for the blouse,” she said. “I want it sleeveless. For an evening function. The saree is already done. It has to match.”

Mukesh lifted a corner, rubbed it once between finger and thumb, and nodded as if the cloth had passed a test only he could see.

“Good piece. Last time the georgette was a little light. This will sit better.”

Last time.

The two words went into me and stayed. There had been a last time. A piece before this piece. A measurement before this measurement. She had stood in this light before, in this room I had not known existed, while I was at a desk checking last seen.

He pulled a thick catalogue from under the table and turned both mannequins a few inches toward us.

“First we lock the front,” he said. “Front and back together later. For evening they have to talk to each other. But front first. If the front is wrong, the back is only an apology.”

Ma stood at the table with one hand on the black cloth. The hurry was still on her face. The catalogue opened anyway.

“Do you have a photo of the saree?” he asked. “I would prefer not to lock a neck on a black piece, if I cannot see it against the pallu.”

Ma shook her head once, then something clicked. Her hand went into the bag which carried the blouse piece. She drew out a photograph that had been folded once and left there on purpose.

“Here it is,” she said. “I left it in this bag, while packing, so I could show you.”

She held the picture out to him.

“The saree is this.”

I could not see the whole picture from the stool. I couldn't see enough.

Mukesh held the picture a little farther, then a little closer. He did not whistle. He did not make a cheap sound. He only looked like a man who knew the price of cloth.

“This is not a small saree,” he said. “Embroidered net. Floral work sitting on sheer. Sequins in the flowers. Midriff will show whether you want it or not. Material like this does not come cheap. If we put a shy neck on it, or a solid house cup, the blouse will look like it got scared of the pallu. The front has to be as sure as the border. Clean black. Deep. Let the saree speak, but do not let the blouse hide, and do not let the blouse sit like a separate black brick on a see-through body.”

Ma took the photo back. She did not say what the saree had cost. She did not have to. The empty designer bag on our folding table had already said it in another language.

He laid the photo on the catalogue and tapped the sweetheart mannequin first.

“This one lifts. Good if the saree is heavy and you want the face to stay the main thing. Neck is not the lowest. Shape is strong. Wired lining helps it. Many women take this when they are unsure. It is bold, but it is still polite. On this saree it will look unfinished. The pallu is already doing the work of showing skin. A closed sweetheart will sit there like a lid.”

He turned a page. A drawn U-neck, deep, with a thin bridge of cloth in the middle.

“This one is running more now. Deep U. The line goes down in a curve. Gold sits in it. On a fuller figure it looks rich, not cheap, if the cut is clean. No extra work needed. Your cloth is already doing the work. But look at the photo. The saree is coming across the body on a slant. A U is a round hole. Against this net it will look like a different language.”

Ma leaned in a little. The light green blouse moved with her. I saw the house neck in the corner of my eye and then looked at the page as if the page were the only thing in the room.

“This looks… a lot,” she said.

“It looks like evening,” Mukesh said. Not pushing yet. Only naming it. “You have been taking safer necks for house. This is not that blouse. Sahab did not call at nine at night for a house neck. And this saree is not asking for a U. It is asking for a drop that follows the dbang. Wait, I will show you another one.”

He turned another page. A sharper V. Then a square neck with a drop. Then a front that was almost only two straps and a wired shelf.

“I will not give you this last one,” he said, and tapped the almost-nothing drawing. “It is for a different body and a different function. On you it will look like the blouse is fighting the saree. We won't do that.”

Ma let out a small breath that might have been relief.

He turned one more page and stopped. A plunging V. Two cups held, meeting in a point low on the chest. Not a U. Not a polite sweetheart. A V that went down and stayed down.

“This,” he said. “Deep V. Plunging. Cups kept. The line goes between, not around. On an embroidered net saree this is the cut that does not look frightened. The pallu can come across one side the way it is coming in your photo. One cup stays in the light. The other sits under the dbang. When the pallu moves, the V is still the V.”

Ma looked at it longer than she had looked at the U.

“If it is too deep?” she asked.

“Then the pallu manages. When the pallu is off, it is an evening blouse. I would suggest you should go with this. Not the U. The U will fight the slant of this saree. Sweetheart will lift and then stop talking. Deep V will sit with the net.”

She did not say no.

“The cups,” Mukesh said, and now he was in the work, not the selling. He pulled a small roll from the rack — black net, dense sequin, the shine sitting in little cells like a dark honeycomb. He laid it on her black piece.

“Your cloth is good for the body of the blouse. Soft shine. It will not scratch. But the cups cannot be only this. Against embroidered net the cup has to catch light the same way the flowers catch light. We cut the cups in this sequin net. Same black. The sequin sits on the cup, not all over the blouse. If we sequin the whole thing it will look like a stage dress. Only the cups. The rest stays your piece.”

Ma touched the sequin net with two fingers. The purple polish looked cheaper against it, then did not.

“It will look… shiny,” she said.

“It will look like evening,” he said again. “Your saree is already shiny in the work. A dull cup will die next to it.”

Ma’s mouth tightened a little. Not at him. At the picture of it.

“Padding?” she said. The word came out like a thing she had decided to say before she could take it back. “I don’t want it looking like a bra sitting outside.”

Mukesh nodded as if he had been waiting for that exact sentence.

“No hard push-up. Soft pad. Thin. Only enough that the cup holds a shape when you sit and when the pallu comes off. Wire in the cup, yes. Without wire a deep V on a full figure collapses by nine o’clock and then the neck looks tired, not deep. Soft lining inside. Soft against skin. The pad sits inside the sequin cup so the sequin does the showing and the pad does the holding. From outside it should look like the cloth has a body, not like a pad has a cloth.”

“But the mark will come,” Ma said.

“Mark will come,” he agreed. “Under, where the wire sits. Soft lining will reduce it. It will not disappear.”

She looked at the sequin roll, then at the photo.

“All right. Soft pad. Wire. Not the heavy one please.”

“Yes madam. Don't worry about it.”

He took a narrow black tape from the drawer and laid it along the drawn strap on the page.

“Now straps. This is where women get shy after they have already said deep. They take a deep V and then they want a two-inch band so the shoulder looks covered. Then the blouse looks like two different decisions. For this saree the strap has to be thin. Finger width. Not a thread — a thread will cut and leave a line by night. Not a wide band. A wide band will sit on the shoulder like a house blouse that got lost. Thin. Sitting a little inside the shoulder, not on the bone edge. Sleeveless means sleeveless. The arm stays open. The strap only keeps the cup from falling.”

Ma looked at her own shoulder in the house blouse, the wide-enough strap of the green cloth.

“Thin will slip,” she said.

“Thin will not slip if the cup is wired and the back is holding. That is why we do not lock the back first. Front first. Thin strap on a deep V needs a back that does the work. If we give you a wide strap I will be stitching a lie.”

He waited.

Ma’s fingers smoothed a corner of the black cloth that did not need smoothing.

“Deep V,” she said. “Not U. Cups in the sequin net. Soft pad, wire, soft lining. Thin straps. Sleeveless. Ok, thats fine.”

“That is a front,” Mukesh said. “Not a compromise.”

Only then did he turn the second mannequin.

“Now back. Front is half the blouse. Back is the other half.”

The dummy’s spine was a long pale line. Two thin hooks at the waist. Almost no cloth.

Ma looked at it longer than she had looked at the V.

“That open?” she said. Not no. Only the question.

“Fully open. One or two hooks at the bottom. This is what evening wants. Pallu covers it when you walk. When you sit, when the pallu shifts, when you go inside a room and take the pin off, the back is the blouse. Last time you took a safer back. A band across, right? Try this one now.”

Ma’s throat moved. She touched the gold chain once, the old habit, then let the hand fall.

Mukesh opened two more pages and laid them side by side.

“See the middle one. Keyhole. Looks modern. Still leaves a lot of cloth. Good for a lunch. Not for this saree.”

He pointed to the third.

“Wide band across the shoulder blades. Very safe. Family function. If someone from the building walks in, nothing to talk about. You did not bring this cloth for the building. And you did not just lock a deep V and a thin strap to put a family band on the back.”

Ma’s mouth tightened a little. Not at him. At the truth of it.

“I don’t want it vulgar,” she said.

“Vulgar is cheap cloth and a wrong cut,” Mukesh said. “This cloth is not cheap. The sequin net is not cheap. Your figure will carry an open back. That is why I am saying it. If the waist was not there, I would stop you. The waist is there. The back should follow it. Two hooks. Thin. No extra band pretending to be modest. The thin straps come over and meet nothing in the middle. That is the point of them.”

He waited.

Ma looked at the dummy’s spine, then at the black piece, then at the sequin net, then at the photo still sitting on the catalogue.

“If I take the safer back,” she said, “the front can still be deep.”

“It can. And it will look unfinished. Like you started the sentence and did not end it. I have seen that blouse leave this shop. The woman always comes back the next season and says, next time keep the back open. You are already here at this hour. Don’t make a blouse you will outgrow in one wearing.”

He was not loud. That made it worse. He was only sure.

Ma’s fingers found the gold chain again and left it.

“Keep the back fully open then” she said. Clearer now. A decision that had been walked to. “One or two hooks at the bottom. Thin. Not much cloth.”

“Two hooks. If you want, a small loop on top for the pallu. If you don’t want it, we take it off.”

“Keep the loop,” she said. “The pallu has to be managed. But the back should show when it comes off.”

The old house was still in the first half of that sentence. The new house was in the second.

Mukesh tapped the front diagram again.

“Then we match it. Deep V. Sequin-net cups. Thin straps. Fully open back. That is a blouse. Not a compromise. Good. Since, the cut is locked, now we measure for this cut.”