Adultery Sakshi's Universe

[yodam69420]

It happened on a breathless afternoon, the kind of day where heat hangs motionless in doorways and even the walls seem to doze. The household had receded into a rare and precious silence. Murugan had left early for a surprise inspection at the port, muttering about delays and container backlogs. Her son had eaten a generous helping of rice and rasam and drifted into a soft, dreamless sleep on the cool tiled floor, his thumb nestled near his cheek. The ceiling fan turned slowly above him, slicing through the warm air like a tired metronome.
Sakshi stood at the kitchen counter, drying a glass with the corner of her saree, her movements languid, unhurried. The afternoon light came in golden streaks through the half-shut windows. A sudden knock broke through the stillness—not urgent, not casual. Just three slow, deliberate taps.
She opened the door to find Ramu standing there.
He looked almost formal—wearing an old checked shirt half-buttoned over a yellowing vest, his hair combed neatly back. In his hand, he held a folded newspaper.
"I thought you might like the crossword," he said. His voice was dry like rustling pages, but steady.
She blinked, momentarily caught off guard. "Oh. That’s thoughtful of you, uncle. Thank you."
He hesitated, shifting his weight.
"May I come in for a moment? Just to rest these knees of mine. The stairs don’t like me much today."
She hesitated only a moment, then stepped aside. "Of course. Please. Come sit near the window—it gets the best breeze."
He walked slowly, each step measured like a truce between will and pain. He sank into the old cane chair by the window with a low grunt and exhaled deeply. The scent of him filled the room—an old, masculine mix of talcum, sandalwood, and the faintest trace of sweat.
She returned to the counter, setting the glass down.
"Your husband," he said softly, his eyes fixed on the painted-over crack in the far wall, "he went out early."
She nodded. "Yes. Left before seven. Won’t be home until night."
There was a pause. A silence not awkward, but charged, like the space between thunder and rain.
Then, in a voice gentler than she’d ever heard from him, he said, "My wife’s name was Sakshi."
Her hand froze mid-motion. The plate she was drying slipped slightly in her grasp.
She turned to look at him. "Truly?"
He nodded. His smile was soft, almost wistful. "Sakshi. That’s what I called her. Just Sakshi. No one else did."
She stepped closer, curiosity blooming like a slow ache. "She... she passed away?"
His eyes, though old, held a memory that had not dimmed. "Eight years ago. Ovarian cancer. It was slow. And cruel. I held her hand through it. She was always warm. Even at the end."
Sakshi sat down across from him, folding her hands in her lap.
"I’m sorry, uncle."
He waved the words away gently. "You live with someone thirty-nine years, you don’t mourn the ending—you carry it. Like a pocket you never empty."
Another moment passed before he looked up. His eyes met hers fully for the first time. Something deep and unguarded passed between them.
"When I first heard your name... when you moved in... I felt like the house had inhaled after being still for too long. It made my bones ache. I thought maybe it was grief. But then... I started to look. And I couldn’t stop."
Her breath hitched.
He continued, his voice neither ashamed nor proud. Just honest.
"At first, it was simple. You shared her name. And then I saw how you carried yourself. Your saree pleats. The way you held your cup with both hands. How you brushed your hair. It wasn’t her, not exactly. But it echoed. And then it changed."
She swallowed, her voice tentative. "Changed how?"
He leaned forward slightly. Not close. Just enough.
"You move like her, yes. But you have fire in you. Where she glowed, you burn. Where she whispered, you command. And still, you’re called Sakshi. That name now lives in your mouth—and it makes me remember things I thought time had buried."
Sakshi looked down, suddenly unsure of where her hands belonged. "Ramu uncle... I don’t know what to say."
"You don’t have to say anything," he replied. "I know how it sounds. An old man burdening you with a ghost. But I couldn’t keep it in anymore. I see you, and I remember love. But lately... I see you, and I feel something else. Something that keeps me awake."
She stood then, the air around her heavy, tight.
"Would you like tea?" she asked, her voice quiet.
He smiled again. It was the smile of someone remembering something both painful and sweet.
"If you make it. The way Sakshi used to. Strong. Sweet. A little too hot."
She nodded and walked to the kitchen. But her pulse raced beneath her skin, and her name—the name she had carried all her life—now clung to her like a second skin.
It wasn’t just hers anymore.
It had become a tether.
A memory.
A mirror.
A claim.
----------
It had been three days since Ramu’s quiet confession—the day he uttered her name like a prayer lost in time, a name they both carried like an inherited wound. Since then, the house hadn’t changed, but Sakshi had. Something within her had shifted—subtle as breath, but constant.
She moved through her routines with the same deliberate grace: making dosai, folding clothes, answering calls from her sister. But every action seemed to hum with an extra layer. The tap of her bangles against metal, the way her saree brushed against the wall—everything now felt seen, charged, as if the air itself had become aware of her.
And each time she passed Ramu’s door, she could feel it—not sound, not movement, but presence. An invisible pull. His silence became a sound in her bones.
That Thursday, the stillness of the house stretched endlessly. Her son was curled on the mat after lunch, mouth slightly open, his soft snore rising in rhythm with the fan overhead. The television in the neighbor’s flat droned with some dull serial. Murugan, thankfully, was away on an overnight port audit.
She had just stepped out of the bathroom, her hair freshly washed and still damp, bundled in a towel atop her head. She wore a pale pink nightie, one she rarely used outside the bedroom, and moved through the corridor barefoot, lost in the warm lethargy of the afternoon.
That’s when she saw it.
A box.

Small. Black. Square. Resting neatly against the frame of her front door, tied with a loop of golden thread as thin as a whisper.
Her heartbeat caught as she looked down the hallway. No one. The stairwell was empty. The door to Ramu’s room remained shut, as if nothing had stirred.
She picked it up, closed the door behind her, and sat at the kitchen table. The light filtered through the half-curtained window, painting golden lines across the wood. She pulled the thread, lifted the lid.
Inside lay a mangalsutra.
Old. Substantial. Its black beads were strung between worn gold spacers, and the pendant, though dulled with age, still held a quiet dignity. It looked like it had once been worn every day, kissed with time and body heat. Beside it sat a folded slip of paper.
Her eyes scanned the handwriting.
If it means nothing, return it to me. If it means something, wear it. I will wait.
Her fingers trembled slightly as she touched the chain. It was heavier than it looked. Its warmth, or maybe the ghost of its warmth, settled into her palm.
A memory came to her—of her own wedding day, of hands tightening the knot, of beads brushing her collarbone. She had almost forgotten what that weight felt like.
But this was not hers. Not from a husband. This was something else.
By evening, the city had turned amber with dusk. Shadows stretched long and soft across the corridor. Sakshi stepped out of her flat with the box in hand. Her hair was now dry, left open and brushed out, falling past her shoulders like silk. She wore a cream saree with a maroon border, unadorned but intentional, the pleats perfectly set.
She walked to his door and knocked.
No delay this time. Ramu opened the door instantly, as if he’d been standing just behind it, listening for her knuckles.
He looked at her—not startled, not eager. Just steady. Composed.
She stepped into his room without speaking. He closed the door with a click that seemed louder than it was.
He looked at her hands.
"You got it," he said softly.
"Yes."
"And you came."
She opened the box and held it toward him.

"Why did you give me this?" she asked. Her voice didn’t waver, but there was weight behind it.
He took a breath, his eyes lingering on the mangalsutra before returning to her face. "It was hers. My Sakshi’s. She wore it for thirty-nine years. I took it off her neck myself, after they declared her gone. I’ve kept it ever since. In my drawer. I never touched it again."
He paused, then continued.
"But you—you came into this house, and I started hearing her name again. Then I saw you. Your presence. Your movements. Your laugh. And slowly, I wasn’t looking at a stranger anymore. I was feeling the ache of something I thought I’d buried."
She swallowed. "You said it wasn’t just the name."
"It isn’t," he said quickly. "It’s you. Your fire. The way you carry your skin. She glowed. But you burn. You burn through the walls of this house, and I... I don’t want to live in ashes anymore."
She didn’t move. But her eyes softened.
"Do you think this is fair?" she asked. "To ask me to wear another woman’s chain? To hold your memory and your desire in the same breath?"
He looked down for a moment. "No. It’s not fair. But neither is aging alone. Neither is wanting in silence. I’m not asking you for anything but a signal. Wear it if you want to be seen by me the way I see you. Return it if it’s too much. Either way, I’ll still look. I’ll still remember."
She stared at the chain again. Its beads reflected her name in her mind, over and over.
"This feels like more than memory," she whispered.
He nodded. "It is. It’s surrender. Yours, if you choose it. Mine, already given."
She let the box close gently in her hand.
"Not tonight," she said.
He didn’t react. Just nodded with a quiet gravity. "I’ll wait. Even if it’s forever."
She turned and walked out slowly, the box held close to her stomach.
Back in her room, she set it on her dresser and stared at it long after the light had left the window.
The chain no longer belonged to another woman.
It waited for her name to claim it.
-------------------
The call connected after a single ring, the tone still echoing when Meena answered with the urgency of someone mid-bite of gossip.
"Tell me everything," she demanded without preamble. "Your voice note had too much breathing and not nearly enough words. Are you pregnant with scandal or what?"
Sakshi gave a breathy laugh, the sound tight and strange in her throat. She was seated cross-legged on her bed, eyes locked on the black box resting silently on her dresser—its thin gold thread still partly unraveled like a whisper waiting to be said aloud.
"He gave me his wife’s Mangalsutra, Meenu."
A pause.
"Wait—what?" Meena’s voice sharpened, tinged with disbelief. "You mean, the Mangalsutra? The mangalsutra? As in—the literal symbol of marriage?"
"Yes," Sakshi said, her tone steadier than she felt. "In a small box. Left it at my doorstep like a relic. There was a note. Simple. ‘If it means nothing, return it. If it means something... wear it.’"
Meena exhaled so hard Sakshi could hear her breath rattle through the speaker. "That man’s got some balls the size of planets. And a sense of drama that belongs in a Tamil film."
Sakshi gave a humorless smile. "He’s got more than that, Meena. He’s got nerve. And patience. And this strange, suffocating gentleness."
"Oh god," Meena groaned. "Sakshi. You told me this man was your landlord’s widowed father. I didn’t expect him to play ghost-husband reincarnation."
"Neither did I," Sakshi whispered. "It’s not what you think. It didn’t feel sleazy. It didn’t feel like a move. It felt... weighted. Like he was handing me a piece of his past. And maybe... a piece of his future."
"Jesus," Meena muttered. "Okay. So what did you do? Did you fling it back? Did you yell? Did you cry?"
Sakshi leaned her head back against the wall. Her fingertips grazed the edge of her neckline. "I took it to him. Opened the box in front of him. Asked him why."
"And what did he say?" Meena’s voice had softened now, touched with real concern.
"He said it was hers. His Sakshi’s. That she wore it for thirty-nine years, and when she died, he couldn’t throw it away or give it to anyone. He said it stayed in his drawer—dead, waiting—until me."
"Oh my god."
"He said I brought time back to him. That I make him feel presence, not just memory. That I burn, Meena. That I remind him of what it feels like to want, and not just remember."
Meena let out a sound somewhere between a groan and a whistle. "That’s... not a flirt. That’s an invocation. That’s spiritual possession."
"And the worst part? I didn’t feel creeped out. I felt—held."
"You didn’t give it back, did you."
"Not yet."
"So what are you thinking?" Meena asked, quieter now, her voice stripped of sarcasm.
Sakshi stood up and walked slowly to the dresser. Her fingers hovered above the box, not quite touching it. "I don’t know. It’s not about sex anymore. Not attention. There’s something deeper under this thing. Something older. It scares me, Meena."
"Scares you because it’s real?"
"Scares me because it asks for something. It’s not passive. That chain has weight. It wants a yes."
"Then you don’t wear it," Meena said firmly. "Not unless you’re ready to say yes to all of it. To what it would mean to be Sakshi again—not his past, but his present. His claim."
They both went silent.
Then Meena added, voice low and certain, "You always had the fire, Sakshi. Maybe this man’s just the first one mad enough to walk into it and not flinch."
Sakshi smiled, her chest tight. "I’m afraid of how much I want to. I don’t want to disappear into his memory. But I also don’t want to return it."
"Then don’t. Keep it. Let it sit. Let it breathe with you. You don’t owe him an answer. But you do owe yourself the truth."
Sakshi’s eyes stayed on the Mangalsutra.
"It’s already here. That box hasn’t moved. Neither have I."
"Then that’s your answer for now."
They stayed on the line for another minute, neither speaking, just breathing in sync. A shared pause.
And when the call finally ended, Sakshi didn’t feel finished.
She felt suspended. Held between a story long gone and one not yet begun.
And the gold-threaded box waited.
Patient.
Alive.
Listening.