Adultery The Secret Celebrity: The Real Adventures of my Mom

[neon_squirrel]

Chapter 2: Echoes From the Past

***

Sravanee sits on the ornate, hand-carved sofa, her bare feet tucked beneath her. A rhythmic murmur fills the room, her mother’s distant prayers blending with the metallic whirr of an electric fan. Incense curls in lazy tendrils towards the ceiling, staining the walls with sweet smoke. She takes a deep breath and holds it there, a secret protest. She waits for the sound of her father's sandals, for her mother's sharp voice, for anything at all. Instead, her uncle's silhouette darkens the doorway, and her chest burns. He leans against the door frame, silent, his eyes steady on hers. His hair, silvering and unkempt, falls across his forehead. He waits until she exhales and sits beside her, the cushion dipping with his weight. "You're growing up, Sravanee," he says, soft as a lullaby. The words hover in the space between them, both promise and demand. He brushes a finger across the back of her hand, light as the smoke rising above them. She swallows hard, her skin hot beneath his touch, as he moves to unbutton her blouse.

Her fingers twist in her lap, helpless and alive with nervous energy. His presence alters the air, heavy with something she can't yet name. It's been years since he's visited, each of them stretched long and dull with nothing but collegework and the same rigid rituals. She remembers how he spun her around in the courtyard when she was a child, his laughter echoing off the stone walls. Her father called him a free spirit, not without a trace of disdain. But she doesn't feel free, not now, not ever. She sneaks glances at him during family gatherings, her curiosity disguised as youthful disinterest. There were whispers among the older women, the word scandalous uttered like a curse. Her pulse quickens at the memory, a betrayal of everything she's been taught to value.

He tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, a tender gesture that sends shivers to the tips of her fingers. She looks up, startled, meeting his gaze for a daring second before retreating. The room seems too small for both of them. Too full. Too intimate. She's seen him in passing, each encounter fleeting, a collection of stolen moments and sideways looks. She wonders if he notices the way she's started pinning her sarees like her mother, if he can tell how often she imagines herself in unfamiliar lives. He tilts his head, waiting for her to speak, but her voice is trapped beneath the weight of all the words she wishes she could say.

"Are you happy to see me?" he asks, his breath warm on her cheek. She doesn't know if she's happy or scared or something entirely new, something in between, something dangerous and delicious.

"Yes," she whispers, barely audible over the insistent hum of the fan.

His eyes crinkle at the corners, pleased. He touches the line of her jaw, tracing it slowly, an artist perfecting a sketch. She holds herself still, terrified he'll stop, terrified he won't. She feels small and inexperienced and yet more alive than she has ever been. More awake. Her world is rigid and orderly, like her father's rows of books or her mother's stacks of folded linen. He moves with the easy confidence of a man unburdened by tradition, a man who draws boundaries only to cross them. A slow grin spreads across his face, and she fights the urge to grin back, unsure if she's earned it, unsure what it means.

"Your blouse," he murmurs, brushing his thumb over the silk-covered buttons. "It's very grown-up."

The compliment sends a flush of heat from her throat to her knees. She should say something in return, something modest and appropriate, but her mind is an unruly mess of rebellion and need. He undoes the top button with practiced ease, his fingers lingering at the base of her neck. Her breath catches, a small, involuntary sound, and the room fills with a sudden, breathless quiet. Even the fan's hum seems to fade. He continues, his touch confident and deliberate, his movements steady as she trembles beneath them. The smell of incense is sweet and overpowering, wrapping itself around her like a soft, binding rope.

The fabric falls open, and the noise of the outside world creeps in, muffled by thick curtains and the whisper of dusk. Her skin is bare and vulnerable beneath his gaze, and she wonders if he can see how quickly her heart is beating, if he can hear the rush of blood in her ears. She wants to tell him that she isn't ready, that she's too young, that this is too much. She wants to tell him that she is ready, that she's been waiting, that this is everything. She wants to tell him everything. But all she can manage is silence, as loud and consuming as the city stretching out beyond the walls of her family's home.

He leans in, closing the distance, reducing the world to just the two of them. Her lips part as if to speak, but nothing comes out except a soft, unsteady breath. She shivers with anticipation and uncertainty and the heady thrill of the forbidden. She closes her eyes, bracing herself for the plunge, feeling the tug of gravity and instinct and all the things she doesn't yet understand.

Outside, the evening blurs into night, the glow of streetlights just beginning to spill through the cracks in the curtains. A car horn bleats impatiently, echoing through the narrow alleyways. She imagines her father is in his study, that her mother is lost in prayer. She imagines that everyone but her has somewhere else to be. Everyone but her, and her uncle, and the new Sravanee that waits on the other side of this moment.

***

He bends to kiss her collarbone, his stubble scbanging across her skin like sandpaper, like silk, like something between pleasure and pain. Her fingers knot in his hair, clumsy and unsure, as he moves against her, beneath her, above her. She's nowhere and everywhere, a thousand places she's never been. Her back arches, pressing into the worn brocade of the sofa, the air slipping out of her lungs in short, sharp gasps. Her uncle holds her as if he has always known how, as if his hands have been waiting for her since the beginning of time. The room tilts and narrows, filled with the scent of incense and her own wild heart, and she hears herself say his name. The sound shocks her, a raw, untamed thing, and he stops, a flash of something almost tender crossing his face. "Let me show you what it means to be a woman, Sravanee," he says, his voice rough with the effort of holding back. She nods, too dizzy with wanting to trust her voice. Too close to knowing the unknowable, to owning the forbidden, to care.

His hands move with a confidence she doesn't yet possess, and she feels a surge of admiration and envy and wanting. His breath is hot and rapid, each exhale a match strike on her bare skin. She has dreamed of this, without knowing what this was. His lips on hers, his weight above her, the delicious fear that someone will walk in and catch her, see her, ruin her. But now, with him here, with the impossibility of this moment so entirely possible, she can think of nothing but his fingers on her breasts, his body urgent against hers. Her limbs tangle in the dbanging silk of her clothes, as if tradition itself tries to bind her, to hold her back. But she is headless, heedless, her mind a haze of noise and color and heat.

"Do you want me to stop?" he asks, the words a slow, deliberate taunt. He knows the answer as surely as he knows the map of her body, more familiar to him now than his own.

"No," she gasps, the word a guilty breath of relief.

His laugh is soft and pleased, a conspirator's laugh, a sinner's laugh. He tastes the hollow of her throat, savoring her, consuming her, teaching her all the lessons she's ever longed to learn. She had thought she knew herself. She had thought the books she read beneath the cover of night, the ones she traded with the older girls, were all the education she needed. She had thought she could be content with secret desires, with untouched pleasures. But now she is a new Sravanee, one she never dared to imagine.

His mouth moves lower, his touch electrifying, terrifying, familiar in the way of half-forgotten dreams. Her head falls back, her spine curves, and she feels him smile against her skin. He cups her hips, lifting her closer, drawing her deeper, the urgency of his want like a fever she is helpless to resist. She bites her lip, the gesture a remnant of a more innocent time, when everything seemed simpler, when she wasn't a woman undone by her own desires. When she was a good girl. She doesn't remember that time, not now, not when he touches her this way, with a possession that obliterates thought, destroys reason, devours restraint.

A quiet, low sound escapes her throat, animal and wild, and she turns her face to the side, ashamed of the truths her body reveals. He pushes her farther, and the room falls away, the edges blurring until they are nowhere and everywhere. He is all things, all places, all she ever wanted. She is pure sensation, pure rebellion, pure need. Her heartbeat roars in her ears, drowning out all other sounds. She has crossed the boundary, and she revels in the crossing. She owns it, owns herself, owns him.

His hand slips beneath the thin fabric, and she is airborne. She is drowning. She is awake, alive, more than she has ever been. Her legs tighten around him, her toes curling against the cool wood of the sofa's frame. She clutches at his back, the muscles taut and real beneath her fingers, as the rest of the world falls away. She is fire and water and sky, a conflagration of impossible contradictions. The pleasure builds, rushing at her like an oncoming train, like a wave she cannot escape. She braces herself for the impact, her body arching towards it, not running, not hiding. Wanting.

"Sravanee," he breathes, a single word that shatters and saves her.

She comes apart, his name a prayer and a curse and a triumph on her lips. Time collapses, compresses, expands. There is only this, this moment, this mad beautiful rightness, and she shudders against him, knowing it was inevitable, knowing she will crave it for the rest of her life. He holds her through it, his grip tight and certain, her uncle, her first, her guide through the wreckage and wonder of her innocence.

They collapse together, the sofa groaning beneath their weight, beneath their need, beneath the impossible intimacy of it all. She can't breathe, can't think, can only feel and feel and feel. His heart pounds beneath her palm, as fast as hers, as frantic. She closes her eyes, not ready to let him go, not ready to be alone with what she's done.

Slowly, he loosens his hold, his movements tender, precise, familiar. His hands brush over her cheeks, tucking back the strands of hair that have come loose in their frenzy. He adjusts his clothing with the same assurance, as if he never doubted he would leave, as if the thought of staying never crossed his mind. She watches him through a daze of disbelief and awe and something dangerously close to love.

He pauses at the door, a shadow framed in golden light, and looks back at her, just once. It is almost an apology, almost a promise, almost enough to break her.

The door closes behind him with a quiet finality that echoes like thunder.

She lies there, a fragile, splintered thing, the pieces of herself too scattered to gather. Her body still thrums with his touch, every inch of her alive with the memory of it. She is Sravanee, she is not Sravanee, she doesn't know, she doesn't care. She only knows the ache of absence, the searing emptiness he leaves behind. The room closes in around her, a stranger now, a world transformed by a secret she can never share. She stares at the ceiling, at the delicate pattern of spider webs in the corners, at the infinitesimal cracks in the plaster. Her chest heaves with every breath, desperate, shattered. Her uncle is gone, but she is still, she is always, here.

***

Her skin prickles with the ghost of his touch. Her blouse hangs open, white and defiant and obscene against the tender marks his fingers left. Sravanee sits up, drawing her knees to her chest, trying to gather herself, trying to feel whole again. Her breath fills the room in shallow bursts, echoing off the familiar walls like a stranger's song. Her uncle is gone, but he is everywhere. The fan whirrs an endless circle above her, impatient with her confusion, with her lingering need. She stands, each step a betrayal of her unsteady legs, and goes to the mirror. Her reflection stares back, someone she doesn't know, someone who knows too much. Her hands shake as she fumbles with the delicate buttons. The room is silent, but the memory is loud. It crowds in on her, on the small space, on the soft places inside her that he uncovered and left raw and pulsing. "What have I done?" she asks, the question as terrifying and inevitable as his touch.

Her bare feet slip across the polished floor, her legs trembling with every step. The sofa is an accusation behind her, the family heirlooms sudden strangers, the traditional trappings more hollow than ever. He left her without a word, and she hates him, loves him, envies his surety. It’s all too much. She should be in her room, surrounded by familiar things, studying for the exams her father expects her to ace, her life ahead of her a straight line of neat checkboxes. But she's here, instead, in this place that is hers and not hers. Her world is a snow globe, shaken, spinning, all the pieces falling too fast to catch.

The silk dbangs filter the street noise into a distant rumble, but inside her, the noise is thunderous. The fan buzzes and she wonders if it knows her secret, if it will spread it through the house and to the neighbors and to everyone until all of Kolkata is talking. She stops, unsure, her breath coming in unsteady gulps, and turns toward the mirror. The frame is intricate, heavy with carved flowers, delicate in a way she no longer is. It stares at her with judgment and expectation and history, and she steels herself before looking.

A girl blinks back at her, familiar yet entirely transformed, a chrysalis shattered open. Her cheeks burn with leftover heat, her hair hangs wild and loose around her shoulders. She can't decide if the eyes that watch her are haunted or hungry. Her fingers reach for the buttons, missing, fumbling, missing again. The world is unbuttoned, unhinged, unraveling, and it takes every ounce of her strength to bring it back to order, to fasten it, to close it, to breathe.

The first button slips through the tiny hole, then the next, her fingers insistent despite their tremor. She focuses on them, on the small, manageable task, but her mind won't stay quiet. It won't let her forget the feeling of him, his skin on her skin, the impossible thrill of what she let him do, what she wanted him to do. She watches her reflection watching her, an infinite loop of accusation and desire. It was wrong, it was inevitable, it was what she wanted, it wasn't what she wanted, she can't believe it happened, she can't believe it didn't happen sooner.

Her blouse finally closed, she leans in, her breath fogging the surface of the glass. Her fingers are drawn to her cheek, to the line of her jaw, to the path he traced, again and again, with such patience, with such confidence, with such obscene disregard for what they both knew to be true. It should be an ugly memory, a dark stain, a filthy secret, but the memory shines. It pulls at her with a relentless force, as sure as the tide. Her touch is feather-light, his touch, and she inhales sharply, feeling the echo of it, the thrill of it, the forever of it.

Sravanee steps back, away from the mirror, away from the reflection that won't let her lie to herself. The room feels smaller, as if the walls are closing in, a punishment, a comfort. "What have I done?" she whispers, but it’s less a question than a reckoning. The words hang in the air, blending with the smell of smoke and want and the unanswered prayers from the next room. Her mother must wonder where she is, why she's so quiet, why the old gramophone isn't playing the sad, sweet songs she listens to over and over and over.

She wants to scream, to laugh, to weep, to dance. She wants to erase the last hour. She wants to live it again, and again, and again. Her father would kill her. Her mother would kill him. She turns from the mirror, her resolve forming as steadily as her hands still shake. It will be her secret, hers alone. Her first secret. The first, the best, the most sacred.

Her breathing slows, and she feels her heart recalibrating, adjusting to the new rhythm, the new her. The shadows lengthen across the floor, and she wonders how she will face her uncle the next time he visits, if he visits, when he visits. She wonders if she will smile at him with the confidence he wore today, with the assurance that his leaving means he'll come back.

She closes her eyes, shuts out the light, shuts out the mirror, shuts out everything except the vivid memory that threatens to overwhelm her. It will be her secret. But it won't stay quiet.

Her eyes open, wide and knowing, the room's dark corners impossibly clear. Sravanee stands, with her body, with herself, with the irretrievable past and the unforeseeable future. She stands, unsteady but sure. She stands.