Adultery Sakshi's Universe

[yodam69420]

It began subtly, like all dangerous things do. Sakshi never crossed a line—she merely circled it, barefoot and bare-armed, as if waiting for it to cross her. She played with space the way some women play with silk, letting the tension hang like a veil between them, delicate and deliberate.

After the Mangalsutra was delivered—but not returned, and not worn—Ramu said nothing. The black box still sat on Sakshi’s dresser, unopened, untouched, and yet constantly seen. A presence in the room, like a waiting animal, pacing quietly in the shadows. Her not wearing it spoke louder than silence, and her not returning it roared with promise. The ambiguity of her gesture—half-closed, half-open—grew sharper than words. The silence between them no longer resembled absence. It was thick, rippling with something feral. It breathed. It waited.
The day before the family left, Sakshi stood by the front gate with Murugan and their son, talking to their landlord Janani and her husband as they loaded their luggage into a white SUV. The air was heavy with heat, and the luggage’s wheels screeched against the concrete.
"Akka, just check on Appa once a day, okay? Make sure he eats," Janani said, handing over a scribbled list of reminders.
"Of course," Sakshi said, smiling. "We’ll bring him breakfast and dinner. No trouble at all."
"He’s gotten very particular lately," Janani added. "Sometimes refuses food. But he listens to you, I’ve noticed. More than he listens to me."
Murugan nodded lightly. "Don’t worry. Sakshi is good at managing things. I’ll be in Chennai for the training, but she’ll handle it."
Janani leaned in a little, teasingly. "You know, it’s funny. My mother-in-law was also named Sakshi. It used to shake Appa up, hearing her name around the house again. I think the first few days, he actually thought it was her... come back somehow."
Murugan offered a tight smile.
"Honestly, I think he still does. He watches you so intently. Like he’s afraid you’ll vanish if he blinks."
Sakshi gave a nervous laugh. "Akka, you’re making it sound like I’m a ghost."
"Not a ghost. More like a second chance," Janani said, eyes twinkling. "He perks up when you pass. Straightens up when you speak."
Murugan’s mouth remained curved in that same faint smile, but his grip on the strap of his bag tightened just a bit. He looked at Sakshi, then down at their son playing with the toy truck.
“I should go finish packing.”
As he walked back into the house, his thoughts wandered.
They mean well. They’re just teasing. But sometimes I wonder if they see more than they say. Maybe I’m just being paranoid. Sakshi’s always been warm with people. Maybe that’s all this is. Still...
He pushed the thought away. There was work ahead. Deadlines. Schedules. And the soft undercurrent of something else—something he wasn’t ready to name.
Their son trailed after him, asking about snacks for the train.
Sakshi stayed with Janani, laughing, deflecting. But inside, her chest buzzed.
Janani wasn’t done.
"So, what will you wear when we’re not around to watch you?" she teased. "Maybe one of those sleeveless cotton sarees? Or that pink one—you know, the one that clings to you in all the wrong ways." She winked. "Appa might actually start skipping his TV serials."
Sakshi laughed, eyes wide. "Akka! You’re too much."

"Just saying! A little color, a little fabric missing here and there—it might add years to his life."
Sakshi grinned but glanced toward the house. Murugan was out of sight, but her chest tightened slightly.
Murugan, inside, stood by the suitcase. His fingers had paused on the zipper.
They’re joking. Harmless jokes. But why does it feel like every word is aimed at a part of me I don’t know how to protect?
He zipped the suitcase and wiped his face.
It’s fine. Let it be fine.
And Ramu, standing quietly nearby, didn’t speak. But his gaze said more than he ever had. There was no amusement in it. Just hunger. Just waiting.


The SUV pulled away, laughter and engine fading. The compound emptied. A quiet fell over the home—not hollow, but poised. Ready.

By the next morning, it began.
She moved through the corridor like she had rehearsed it in a dream. When her son played inside. When the hallway was empty. When she knew the thin curtain behind Ramu’s window would stir.
Her sarees became stories. Dbangs that slipped like sighs. Blouses of lowered backs and rising hemlines. Fabric that obeyed her mood. Each step a performance, each turn a pull of invisible string.
The bangles returned. Their soft chime told time differently now. Her hips had a rhythm. Her footsteps were poetry. Anklets marked the punctuation.
One afternoon, Ramu stood in his doorway, arms behind his back. Waiting.
She came out with a steel bucket of laundry. Her blouse was damp. Her chest rose and fell with the weight of heat and gravity.
“Did you like the tea yesterday?” she asked, clothespins pressed between her fingers.
He didn’t answer immediately. "It was strong."
“You like strong, don’t you?”
He stepped closer to the threshold. "Not everything that looks delicate is weak."
She gave a half-smile. “That’s why I haven’t snapped yet.”
That night, the line held only one thing: a maroon blouse. Sleeveless. Almost translucent. Hung alone like a promise unspoken. The corridor lamp made the fabric glow, flicker.
He didn’t touch it. But it reached him all the same.
The next day, she knocked at his door.
“Do you have sugar?”
He opened the door slowly. Her saree stuck to her body from the heat. Her neck glistened. The smell of soap and cardamom lingered.
He handed her the tin.

“Anything else?”
She took it slowly. Her fingers brushed his.
"Not today."
She turned. One drop of water from her wet hair fell down her spine. He tracked it like a prayer.
That evening, she passed his window with jasmine tucked behind her ear. She stood by the tulsi, pouring water with slow grace. Her saree clung. Her breath moved her blouse.

Once, she dropped her pallu completely while reaching up.
She laughed. “Oh no. So clumsy these days.”
It wasn’t innocence. It was a fuse.
And he was the dry spark.
Behind the curtain, he gripped the sill, his fingers white with restraint.
This was no longer flirtation. It was hunger drawn in lace and glance.
She was the hunter.
And he was already caught.
Every day she gave him just enough light to chase.
And every night, he dreamt of what he would do if she ever stopped running.


The train had long since pulled away.
Murugan’s last wave lingered in Sakshi’s memory, his smile uncertain beneath the station lights. Their son had clutched her sari until the final moment, waving at her with one hand while holding his father’s thumb with the other.
For the first time in years, Sakshi was almost alone in the house.
Almost—because the house still had her. And it still had her son, now curled in the corner room on a thin mat, limbs flung like careless brushstrokes across the sheet. But the quiet was undeniable. No husband’s footsteps. No questions. No presence looming beside her. Just the tick of the wall clock and the slow breath of the ceiling fan slicing through the afternoon heat.
She stood at the threshold of the corridor, one hand against the doorframe, listening.
Nothing. And yet...
She felt him.
Somewhere in the hush of that afternoon, Ramu had noticed. He always did.
That day, she didn’t rush to sweep the corridor. She didn’t wear her usual daily saree. She chose the navy blue chiffon with silver paisley work—a saree too fine for chores, too sheer for denial. Her blouse was soft, sleeveless, tied in the back with strings barely hanging on. She oiled her hair, coiled it up, let it fall again. Combed it out with fingers until it shimmered.
When she stepped into the corridor, she didn’t glance at his window.
She didn’t have to.
The curtain stirred.
Behind it, Ramu sat, breath caught. This was no coincidence. Murugan was gone. Her world had fallen silent. And now she moved like something unbound.
He didn’t speak. He didn’t move.
Sakshi walked past his door slowly, pleats swaying with each careful step. She bent to pick a flower from the tulsi pot. Her blouse shifted, the slope of her back exposed. She adjusted nothing. Walked back in with the door left open—casually, dangerously.
Minutes passed.
Then a sound.
Knuckles. Just once.
She opened it.
He stood there, leaning slightly on his cane. Shirt misbuttoned. Mouth tight. Eyes very open.
“I... heard something fall,” he said.
She held up the flower.
“Just this.”
His gaze didn’t drop. Neither did hers.
She stepped aside.
“Come in, then.”
He entered slowly, like a man stepping into memory. The door shut behind him with a soft click.
He sat on the cane chair by the window, fingers wrapped white around the wooden arms. She moved without urgency, without hesitation. She brought him water, her hip brushing the table as she leaned forward. He drank in silence.
Then, from the back room: a sound. A whimper. Then a growing cry.
Her son had woken.
Sakshi tilted her head, sighed—not annoyed, but indulgent. "Excuse me," she murmured, already turning, the fabric of her saree sliding gently across the tile.
He watched the sway of her as she left. A shape sculpted from shadow and heat.
When she returned, her son was in her arms, fussy and rubbing his eyes, a tiny fist clenched near her breast.
“Hungry, of course,” she said with a soft smile, then looked directly at Ramu. “Children always know what they want.”
He nodded, voice caught in his throat.
She sat on the divan across from him. Shifted. Pulled her son close.
With practiced ease, she loosened her pallu, but not too far. Her blouse was already low-cut, the back string now undone. She slipped the fabric off her shoulder. Exposed just enough. Cradled him. Let him latch.
The child sighed with satisfaction. So did Ramu—silently.
Her breast, full and firm, rose into view with each pull. A delicate arch framed by the fall of her saree. Her fingers brushed his soft head, smoothing hair with a rhythm older than words.
She didn’t flinch.
“It’s a beautiful thing, isn’t it?” she asked. Her eyes didn’t leave Ramu’s. “Feeding. Giving.”
“Yes,” he said hoarsely.
She smiled. This time it curled, deliberate.
“Sometimes,” she whispered, “I wonder what else this body still remembers how to give.”
His knuckles tightened. The veins on his forearm pulsed visibly.
She shifted her son slightly, exposing more curve, letting the fabric fall naturally lower. She stroked her own skin absently as she readjusted.
“Not everything sacred has to be hidden,” she added, looking down at the boy suckling with sleepy hunger. “Not everything natural is innocent.”
Ramu didn’t speak.
He couldn’t.
She let the moment stretch, unbothered by modesty, by ritual, by consequence. It wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t an invitation either.
It was a display.
And he watched like a man being punished for sins he had yet to commit.
The child finished and nestled against her. She adjusted the saree—not hurriedly. Tied the blouse back. Covered what needed covering.
But the memory of what had been visible hung thick in the room.
She rocked the boy gently.
Ramu stood, slowly.
“I should go.”

She nodded. “Of course.”
He turned at the door.
She didn’t stop him.
But as it closed behind him, she looked down at her son, kissed his head, and whispered:
“Now he’s seen what he can’t yet touch.”
And the next move... would be hers.