15-12-2025, 10:08 AM
The day began innocently enough, masked by the oppressive, stifling blanket of a typical Bengal summer morning. The heat rose early, shimmering off the asphalt and baking the old walls of the house, but for Shweta, the temperature outside was nothing compared to the simmering frustration within.
Ani hadn't come home last weekend. It had been two weeks now—fourteen long, lonely nights—and the strain had finally snapped the fragile patience she usually maintained. The argument over the phone last night had been ugly, filled with her accusations of neglect and his exhausted, defensive mumbles. She had hung up on him, leaving the silence to ring louder than his apologies.
Even Ani’s mother had noticed the storm clouds on Shweta’s face during breakfast. The older woman, sensing the marital discord, had wisely chosen to retreat to her scriptures, leaving Shweta to her brooding. Shweta performed her household duties with mechanical efficiency, scrubbing and sweeping as if the physical exertion could scour away her anger. By the time lunch was over and the house fell into its afternoon slumber, she was drenched in perspiration and mentally drained.
She retreated to the second floor, to the sanctuary of Sumu’s room.
Whatever hesitation she had once felt about entering her brother-in-law’s private space had long since evaporated. It didn't even occur to her anymore that this was not her husband’s room; in the lonely stretch of the weekdays, she had claimed it as her temporary kingdom. She closed the heavy wooden door, shutting out the heat and the dust of the rest of the house, and switched on the air conditioner. The machine hummed to life, a low, comforting drone that promised relief.
She turned on the large television, navigating to a web series she had been following, but the images blurred before her eyes. The characters' voices seemed distant, irrelevant compared to the replay of the argument in her head. *Why does he work so hard if we can never enjoy it?* she thought bitterly. *Why am I the only one waiting?*
She lay back on the plush grey sofa, but it felt too upright, too rigid for her exhaustion. On impulse, she moved to Sumu’s large bed. The mattress was firm, the sheets smelling faintly of fabric softener and the cool, clean scent of the room. She curled up, intending only to rest her eyes for a moment. But the contrast was too potent—the brutal humidity she had battled all morning versus this artificial winter. The cool air caressed her sweat-dampened skin, pulling her eyelids down with irresistible weight. She clicked the remote, silencing the TV, and let the darkness take her.
***
Downstairs, in the converted home office, Sumu was frowning at his laptop screen. A notification for an upcoming conference call blinked at him, and he patted his desk, looking for his noise-canceling headset. It wasn't there.
He rubbed his temples, remembering. *Last night.* He had taken the laptop upstairs to his bedroom for a late-night sync with the US team and had left the headset on the bedside table.
He pushed his chair back, a flicker of hesitation crossing his face. It was 3:00 PM. Usually, this was the time Shweta occupied his room to watch her shows. They had an unspoken agreement: the room was hers during the day, his at night. He respected that boundary, wary of the awkwardness of being alone in a bedroom with his cousin's wife.
He walked out into the corridor and paused at the foot of the stairs, straining his ears. The house was silent, save for the distant, mournful call of a koel bird and the rhythmic snoring of his father from the ground floor bedroom. No sound drifted down from the first floor. No dialogue from the TV, no movement.
*She must have skipped it today,* he thought, feeling a wave of relief. *Maybe she’s napping in her own room.*
Confident that the coast was clear, he climbed the stairs. He reached for the handle of his bedroom door and pushed it open, stepping from the sweltering hallway into the refrigerated air of his room.
He froze.
Shweta was there. But she wasn't watching TV.
She was fast asleep in the center of his bed, a vision of disarray that made the breath catch in his throat. She was lying on her back, one arm thrown carelessly over her head, her body completely surrendered to the deep sleep of the exhausted.
Sumu stood paralyzed in the doorway, caught between the urge to flee and a sudden, magnetic pull to look.
The cotton saree she wore—a simple yellow one printed with small flowers—had ridden up her legs as she tossed in her sleep, bunching around her knees. It exposed the smooth, pale expanse of her calves and the soft curve of her thighs, skin that was usually hidden beneath layers of modesty. But it was her upper body that made his ears burn hot red.
The pallu of her saree had slipped entirely off her shoulder, pooling uselessly on the mattress beside her. Her blouse, a tight-fitting garment that strained against her figure, was on full display. Without the saree to cover her, the rise and fall of her chest with each deep breath was mesmerizing. He could see the deep indentation of her navel on her flat, exposed midriff, the curve of her waist looking impossibly soft against the grey sheets.
And then he saw the hook.
Perhaps due to the heat earlier in the day, or simply for comfort, the top hook of her blouse was undone. It wasn't much, but it was enough to widen the neckline, offering a glimpse of the deep, shadowy cleavage that Ani usually claimed as his own.
Sumu felt a strange, heavy thud in his chest. He had never looked at Shweta like this. To him, she had always been *Boudi*—a family member, a fixture in the house, Ani’s responsibility. He knew she was pretty, objectively speaking, but he had never allowed himself to really *see* her.
Now, stripped of her social armor, lying vulnerable in his bed, surrounded by his scent, she didn't look like a sister-in-law. She looked like a woman. A desirable, incredibly sensual woman.
Something stirred low in his belly, a sharp spike of arousal that brought an immediate flush of guilt. He shouldn't be seeing this. This was forbidden. This was Ani’s wife.
And yet, he didn't move. He stood there for several long seconds, his eyes tracing the line of her neck, the sweat that had dried on her collarbone, the way her lips were slightly parted. The silence of the room felt heavy, charged with a static that had nothing to do with the electronics.
The notification sound from his phone in his pocket shattered the spell.
*The call.*
Sumu blinked, the reality of the situation crashing back in. If she woke up now and saw him staring, it would be catastrophic. He swallowed hard, forcing his eyes away from the curve of her hips.
Moving with the stealth of a thief, he tiptoed into the room. The air conditioning raised goosebumps on his arms, a stark contrast to the heat flushing his face. He reached the bedside table, his hand hovering inches from her sleeping form. She murmured something in her sleep, shifting her leg, and Sumu froze, his heart hammering against his ribs.
She didn't wake. She settled back into the mattress, her hand brushing against the spot where he usually slept.
Sumu grabbed the headphones. He backed away slowly, never taking his eyes off her, until he was across the threshold. He pulled the door shut with a soft click, his hand trembling slightly on the knob.
Standing in the hot corridor, he leaned back against the closed door, exhaling a breath he didn't realize he’d been holding. The image of her—disheveled, exposed, and asleep in his bed—was burned onto the back of his eyelids. He tried to shake it off, to compose himself for his meeting, but as he walked back downstairs, the feeling of the cool room and the sight of her warm skin lingered, unsettling and undeniably intoxicating.
—-
The light in the room had shifted, the bright, harsh glare of the afternoon softening into the heavy, amber hues of dusk. Shweta blinked open her eyes, momentarily disoriented by the grey ceiling and the unfamiliar hum of the air conditioner. Then, reality rushed back in.
She scrambled upright, her heart giving a frantic thud against her ribs. *Evening.* She had slept through the entire afternoon.
A wave of unease washed over her. Watching TV on the sofa was one thing; sleeping in his bed, burrowing into his sheets like a cat, was entirely another. It felt intimate in a way she hadn't intended, a transgression of the unspoken boundaries between them. Sumu would be finishing his work soon. He might come upstairs to freshen up.
She swung her legs off the mattress, her bare feet hitting the cold floor. She needed to erase herself from this room.
With frantic, trembling hands, she smoothed the wrinkles from the grey bedsheet. She punched the pillows back into their crisp, square shapes, aligning them perfectly against the headboard. She checked the floor for any stray hair, her breath coming in shallow, nervous puffs.
Before reaching for the door handle, she paused, turning back to survey the room under the glow of the overhead light she had just flickered on. It looked pristine. Cold. Masculine. Yet, something felt… off.
Her eyes swept the surfaces—the dresser, the TV console, the bedside table. It looked tidy, just as she had found it. But a nagging sensation tugged at the back of her mind, a feeling that the composition of the room had shifted slightly. She stared at the bedside table for a long moment. The lamp, the coaster, the digital clock. It all seemed fine.
*You’re just paranoid,* she told herself, shaking her head to dislodge the feeling. She switched off the light, plunging the room back into shadows, and slipped out, closing the heavy wooden door with a soft click.
Downstairs, the house was waking up from its siesta. The smell of burning coal and evening spices wafted from the kitchen. Shweta descended the stairs, composing her face into a mask of normalcy.
"Bouma, you're up?" Jethima called out from the kitchen. The older woman was busy straining tea into cups. "Your mother-in-law went to the Satsang Mandir for bhajans. She won't be back for an hour."
Shweta nodded, leaning against the doorframe, grateful for the distraction. "I... I had a headache, Jethima. I lay down for a bit."
"Good, good. The heat is terrible today," Jethima said kindly. She placed two Marie biscuits on a saucer. "Since you are here, can you take this to Sumu? I have to watch the milk so it doesn't boil over. He's in his office."
Shweta hesitated, her stomach tightening, but she nodded. "Yes, Jethima."
She took the cup and saucer, the china rattling slightly in her grip. She walked down the short hallway to the converted office room. The rhythmic clatter of a keyboard stopped as she knocked on the door.
"Come in," Sumu’s voice came through, deep and distracted.
Shweta pushed the door open. The office was cool, though not as frigid as his bedroom. Sumu was sitting behind his wide desk, the glow of the monitor illuminating his face. He looked up, a flicker of surprise widening his eyes when he saw her instead of his mother.
"Oh, Shweta," he said, shifting in his chair. "I thought Ma..."
"Ma went to the temple," Shweta said, her voice sounding thin to her own ears. "And Jethima is in the kitchen, so..."
She stepped forward to place the tea on his desk, but her movement faltered. Her eyes had locked onto his head.
He was wearing them. The large, black noise-canceling headphones. One ear cup was pushed slightly back so he could hear her, but they were unmistakably the same ones.
The realization hit her with the force of a physical blow, nearly causing her to drop the tea.
*They were on the bedside table.*
The image flashed in her mind with crystalline clarity: when she had first entered his room that afternoon, seeking the AC, the headphones had been resting on the small wooden table next to the bed. She was certain of it. She had almost knocked them over when she placed her phone down.
Now, they were here. On his ears.
The blood drained from her face, only to come rushing back in a torrential, burning tide of crimson.
If the headphones were here, that meant he had gone upstairs. He had entered the room.
He had entered the room while she was asleep.
A suffocating heat rose from her chest, choking her. She remembered how she had woken up—limbs sprawled, saree twisted. And then, with a jolt of pure horror, she remembered the blouse. She had unhooked the top clasp to let her skin breathe. The fabric would have gaped open with the way she had been lying on her back.
*Oh god.*
She stood frozen, the saucer trembling in her hand. He had been there. He had stood close enough to the bed to pick up the headphones from the table. He must have been inches away from her face. Inches away from her exposed chest.
"Shweta?" Sumu asked, frowning slightly. "Is everything okay?"
Shweta couldn't speak. The words died in her throat. She looked at him, searching his eyes for mockery, for judgment, for *knowledge*. But he just looked at her with a strange, intense guardedness.
She slammed the cup down on the coaster, tea sloshing over the rim. "I... I have to go," she stammered, breathless.
Without waiting for a response, she turned and fled the room, her saree pallu trailing behind her like a turbulent wake.
Sumu watched the empty doorway for a long time after she left. He didn't reach for the tea. He slowly slid the headphones off his ears and set them on the desk, his hand lingering on the padded leather.
He hadn't noticed her panic. He barely registered her words. His mind was too occupied with the struggle to keep his own composure. Every time he blinked, he saw it again—the curve of her waist, the rise and fall of her breath, the shadow between her breasts. The image had branded itself onto his retinas. He felt a heavy, guilty pulse in his veins that he couldn't suppress.
Ani hadn't come home last weekend. It had been two weeks now—fourteen long, lonely nights—and the strain had finally snapped the fragile patience she usually maintained. The argument over the phone last night had been ugly, filled with her accusations of neglect and his exhausted, defensive mumbles. She had hung up on him, leaving the silence to ring louder than his apologies.
Even Ani’s mother had noticed the storm clouds on Shweta’s face during breakfast. The older woman, sensing the marital discord, had wisely chosen to retreat to her scriptures, leaving Shweta to her brooding. Shweta performed her household duties with mechanical efficiency, scrubbing and sweeping as if the physical exertion could scour away her anger. By the time lunch was over and the house fell into its afternoon slumber, she was drenched in perspiration and mentally drained.
She retreated to the second floor, to the sanctuary of Sumu’s room.
Whatever hesitation she had once felt about entering her brother-in-law’s private space had long since evaporated. It didn't even occur to her anymore that this was not her husband’s room; in the lonely stretch of the weekdays, she had claimed it as her temporary kingdom. She closed the heavy wooden door, shutting out the heat and the dust of the rest of the house, and switched on the air conditioner. The machine hummed to life, a low, comforting drone that promised relief.
She turned on the large television, navigating to a web series she had been following, but the images blurred before her eyes. The characters' voices seemed distant, irrelevant compared to the replay of the argument in her head. *Why does he work so hard if we can never enjoy it?* she thought bitterly. *Why am I the only one waiting?*
She lay back on the plush grey sofa, but it felt too upright, too rigid for her exhaustion. On impulse, she moved to Sumu’s large bed. The mattress was firm, the sheets smelling faintly of fabric softener and the cool, clean scent of the room. She curled up, intending only to rest her eyes for a moment. But the contrast was too potent—the brutal humidity she had battled all morning versus this artificial winter. The cool air caressed her sweat-dampened skin, pulling her eyelids down with irresistible weight. She clicked the remote, silencing the TV, and let the darkness take her.
***
Downstairs, in the converted home office, Sumu was frowning at his laptop screen. A notification for an upcoming conference call blinked at him, and he patted his desk, looking for his noise-canceling headset. It wasn't there.
He rubbed his temples, remembering. *Last night.* He had taken the laptop upstairs to his bedroom for a late-night sync with the US team and had left the headset on the bedside table.
He pushed his chair back, a flicker of hesitation crossing his face. It was 3:00 PM. Usually, this was the time Shweta occupied his room to watch her shows. They had an unspoken agreement: the room was hers during the day, his at night. He respected that boundary, wary of the awkwardness of being alone in a bedroom with his cousin's wife.
He walked out into the corridor and paused at the foot of the stairs, straining his ears. The house was silent, save for the distant, mournful call of a koel bird and the rhythmic snoring of his father from the ground floor bedroom. No sound drifted down from the first floor. No dialogue from the TV, no movement.
*She must have skipped it today,* he thought, feeling a wave of relief. *Maybe she’s napping in her own room.*
Confident that the coast was clear, he climbed the stairs. He reached for the handle of his bedroom door and pushed it open, stepping from the sweltering hallway into the refrigerated air of his room.
He froze.
Shweta was there. But she wasn't watching TV.
She was fast asleep in the center of his bed, a vision of disarray that made the breath catch in his throat. She was lying on her back, one arm thrown carelessly over her head, her body completely surrendered to the deep sleep of the exhausted.
Sumu stood paralyzed in the doorway, caught between the urge to flee and a sudden, magnetic pull to look.
The cotton saree she wore—a simple yellow one printed with small flowers—had ridden up her legs as she tossed in her sleep, bunching around her knees. It exposed the smooth, pale expanse of her calves and the soft curve of her thighs, skin that was usually hidden beneath layers of modesty. But it was her upper body that made his ears burn hot red.
The pallu of her saree had slipped entirely off her shoulder, pooling uselessly on the mattress beside her. Her blouse, a tight-fitting garment that strained against her figure, was on full display. Without the saree to cover her, the rise and fall of her chest with each deep breath was mesmerizing. He could see the deep indentation of her navel on her flat, exposed midriff, the curve of her waist looking impossibly soft against the grey sheets.
And then he saw the hook.
Perhaps due to the heat earlier in the day, or simply for comfort, the top hook of her blouse was undone. It wasn't much, but it was enough to widen the neckline, offering a glimpse of the deep, shadowy cleavage that Ani usually claimed as his own.
Sumu felt a strange, heavy thud in his chest. He had never looked at Shweta like this. To him, she had always been *Boudi*—a family member, a fixture in the house, Ani’s responsibility. He knew she was pretty, objectively speaking, but he had never allowed himself to really *see* her.
Now, stripped of her social armor, lying vulnerable in his bed, surrounded by his scent, she didn't look like a sister-in-law. She looked like a woman. A desirable, incredibly sensual woman.
Something stirred low in his belly, a sharp spike of arousal that brought an immediate flush of guilt. He shouldn't be seeing this. This was forbidden. This was Ani’s wife.
And yet, he didn't move. He stood there for several long seconds, his eyes tracing the line of her neck, the sweat that had dried on her collarbone, the way her lips were slightly parted. The silence of the room felt heavy, charged with a static that had nothing to do with the electronics.
The notification sound from his phone in his pocket shattered the spell.
*The call.*
Sumu blinked, the reality of the situation crashing back in. If she woke up now and saw him staring, it would be catastrophic. He swallowed hard, forcing his eyes away from the curve of her hips.
Moving with the stealth of a thief, he tiptoed into the room. The air conditioning raised goosebumps on his arms, a stark contrast to the heat flushing his face. He reached the bedside table, his hand hovering inches from her sleeping form. She murmured something in her sleep, shifting her leg, and Sumu froze, his heart hammering against his ribs.
She didn't wake. She settled back into the mattress, her hand brushing against the spot where he usually slept.
Sumu grabbed the headphones. He backed away slowly, never taking his eyes off her, until he was across the threshold. He pulled the door shut with a soft click, his hand trembling slightly on the knob.
Standing in the hot corridor, he leaned back against the closed door, exhaling a breath he didn't realize he’d been holding. The image of her—disheveled, exposed, and asleep in his bed—was burned onto the back of his eyelids. He tried to shake it off, to compose himself for his meeting, but as he walked back downstairs, the feeling of the cool room and the sight of her warm skin lingered, unsettling and undeniably intoxicating.
—-
The light in the room had shifted, the bright, harsh glare of the afternoon softening into the heavy, amber hues of dusk. Shweta blinked open her eyes, momentarily disoriented by the grey ceiling and the unfamiliar hum of the air conditioner. Then, reality rushed back in.
She scrambled upright, her heart giving a frantic thud against her ribs. *Evening.* She had slept through the entire afternoon.
A wave of unease washed over her. Watching TV on the sofa was one thing; sleeping in his bed, burrowing into his sheets like a cat, was entirely another. It felt intimate in a way she hadn't intended, a transgression of the unspoken boundaries between them. Sumu would be finishing his work soon. He might come upstairs to freshen up.
She swung her legs off the mattress, her bare feet hitting the cold floor. She needed to erase herself from this room.
With frantic, trembling hands, she smoothed the wrinkles from the grey bedsheet. She punched the pillows back into their crisp, square shapes, aligning them perfectly against the headboard. She checked the floor for any stray hair, her breath coming in shallow, nervous puffs.
Before reaching for the door handle, she paused, turning back to survey the room under the glow of the overhead light she had just flickered on. It looked pristine. Cold. Masculine. Yet, something felt… off.
Her eyes swept the surfaces—the dresser, the TV console, the bedside table. It looked tidy, just as she had found it. But a nagging sensation tugged at the back of her mind, a feeling that the composition of the room had shifted slightly. She stared at the bedside table for a long moment. The lamp, the coaster, the digital clock. It all seemed fine.
*You’re just paranoid,* she told herself, shaking her head to dislodge the feeling. She switched off the light, plunging the room back into shadows, and slipped out, closing the heavy wooden door with a soft click.
Downstairs, the house was waking up from its siesta. The smell of burning coal and evening spices wafted from the kitchen. Shweta descended the stairs, composing her face into a mask of normalcy.
"Bouma, you're up?" Jethima called out from the kitchen. The older woman was busy straining tea into cups. "Your mother-in-law went to the Satsang Mandir for bhajans. She won't be back for an hour."
Shweta nodded, leaning against the doorframe, grateful for the distraction. "I... I had a headache, Jethima. I lay down for a bit."
"Good, good. The heat is terrible today," Jethima said kindly. She placed two Marie biscuits on a saucer. "Since you are here, can you take this to Sumu? I have to watch the milk so it doesn't boil over. He's in his office."
Shweta hesitated, her stomach tightening, but she nodded. "Yes, Jethima."
She took the cup and saucer, the china rattling slightly in her grip. She walked down the short hallway to the converted office room. The rhythmic clatter of a keyboard stopped as she knocked on the door.
"Come in," Sumu’s voice came through, deep and distracted.
Shweta pushed the door open. The office was cool, though not as frigid as his bedroom. Sumu was sitting behind his wide desk, the glow of the monitor illuminating his face. He looked up, a flicker of surprise widening his eyes when he saw her instead of his mother.
"Oh, Shweta," he said, shifting in his chair. "I thought Ma..."
"Ma went to the temple," Shweta said, her voice sounding thin to her own ears. "And Jethima is in the kitchen, so..."
She stepped forward to place the tea on his desk, but her movement faltered. Her eyes had locked onto his head.
He was wearing them. The large, black noise-canceling headphones. One ear cup was pushed slightly back so he could hear her, but they were unmistakably the same ones.
The realization hit her with the force of a physical blow, nearly causing her to drop the tea.
*They were on the bedside table.*
The image flashed in her mind with crystalline clarity: when she had first entered his room that afternoon, seeking the AC, the headphones had been resting on the small wooden table next to the bed. She was certain of it. She had almost knocked them over when she placed her phone down.
Now, they were here. On his ears.
The blood drained from her face, only to come rushing back in a torrential, burning tide of crimson.
If the headphones were here, that meant he had gone upstairs. He had entered the room.
He had entered the room while she was asleep.
A suffocating heat rose from her chest, choking her. She remembered how she had woken up—limbs sprawled, saree twisted. And then, with a jolt of pure horror, she remembered the blouse. She had unhooked the top clasp to let her skin breathe. The fabric would have gaped open with the way she had been lying on her back.
*Oh god.*
She stood frozen, the saucer trembling in her hand. He had been there. He had stood close enough to the bed to pick up the headphones from the table. He must have been inches away from her face. Inches away from her exposed chest.
"Shweta?" Sumu asked, frowning slightly. "Is everything okay?"
Shweta couldn't speak. The words died in her throat. She looked at him, searching his eyes for mockery, for judgment, for *knowledge*. But he just looked at her with a strange, intense guardedness.
She slammed the cup down on the coaster, tea sloshing over the rim. "I... I have to go," she stammered, breathless.
Without waiting for a response, she turned and fled the room, her saree pallu trailing behind her like a turbulent wake.
Sumu watched the empty doorway for a long time after she left. He didn't reach for the tea. He slowly slid the headphones off his ears and set them on the desk, his hand lingering on the padded leather.
He hadn't noticed her panic. He barely registered her words. His mind was too occupied with the struggle to keep his own composure. Every time he blinked, he saw it again—the curve of her waist, the rise and fall of her breath, the shadow between her breasts. The image had branded itself onto his retinas. He felt a heavy, guilty pulse in his veins that he couldn't suppress.
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