Adultery Weekday Wife

[Sherlocked]

That night, the air in the house was thick, charged with electricity that had nothing to do with the power grid.


Sumu lay in his large, modern bed, staring at the ceiling fan slicing through the shadows. He had changed the sheets, but it didn't matter. He could still smell her. The faint, sweet scent of sandalwood soap and the unique, warm musk of her skin lingered on the mattress, ghosting around him. He turned on his side, squeezing his eyes shut, but the flashback was relentless. He was a man possessed, fighting a battle between familial duty and a sudden, roaring desire that terrified him.


Few feet away in the same floor, in the heavy, antique *palanka* bed, Shweta lay curled in a tight ball, her eyes wide open in the darkness.


She felt sick with embarrassment. She was twenty feet away from him. The floorboards felt too thin. She kept replaying the timeline, calculating the angles. *He saw me. He definitely saw me.* The thought made her skin prickle. It wasn't just the shame of being seen disheveled; it was the intimacy of it. He had been in the room, watching her sleep, and she had been defenseless.


She shivered, the thought of him standing over her, silent and observing, made her heart race—not entirely out of fear, but out of a strange, forbidden thrill that she immediately tried to squash.


Two hundred and fifty kilometers away, in a cramped dormitory that smelled of sweat and steel, Ani lay on a lumpy mattress. He stared at his phone screen, willing it to light up. He had called twice. She hadn't picked up.


*She’s still angry,* he thought, a heavy stone of guilt settling in his gut. He rolled over, facing the peeling paint of the wall, hoping that by morning she would forgive him. He fell into a restless sleep, dreaming of a happy reunion, completely unaware that he was no longer the only man occupying his wife's thoughts.


Outside, the wind began to pick up. The leaves of the mango trees thrashed against the window panes, and the sky rumbled with a low, menacing growl. A *Kalbaishakhi*—the violent Nor'wester storm common in Bengal springs—was brewing. Dark clouds were gathering, ready to unleash a torrent that would mirror the chaos about to tear through the quiet, peaceful lives within the house.


—--


The storm had raged well into the early hours of the morning, the *Kalbaishakhi* lashing against the windowpanes with a fury that mirrored the turbulence in Shweta’s mind. She had lain awake for hours, listening to the wind howl and the thunder crack, her body rigid in the cold, antique bed. Every flash of lightning had illuminated the empty space beside her, a stark reminder of her solitude. But more haunting than the storm was the replay of the afternoon—the image of Sumu standing over her, the realization of her undone blouse, the suffocating mix of shame and thrill that had kept sleep at bay.


When she finally woke, the sun was already high, blazing with a vengeance that sought to erase any trace of the night’s rain. The bright, unforgiving light of the morning filtered through the slats of the windows, casting striped shadows across the floor.


Shweta sat up, rubbing her temples. In the clarity of the day, the anxieties of the night before felt almost foolish. *He probably didn't see anything,* she told herself, forcing a rational perspective. *He just grabbed his headphones and left. I’m making a mountain out of a molehill because I’m lonely and bored.* The shame that had burned her cheeks last night now felt like a silly, childish overreaction.


She reached for her phone on the bedside table. Three missed calls from Ani.


A pang of genuine guilt pierced through her. She had been so wrapped up in her own drama with Sumu that she had ignored her husband. Checking the time, she realized he wouldn’t have left for his shift yet.


She dialed his number, her heart doing a small, hopeful flutter when he picked up on the second ring.


"Shweta?" His voice was crackly, the connection poor, but the relief in his tone was unmistakable. "I was worried. You didn't pick up last night."


"I... I fell asleep early," she lied, the falsehood tasting like ash on her tongue. "The storm knocked out the signal for a bit too."


"I'm sorry about the other night," Ani rushed to say, cutting through the awkwardness. "I shouldn't have yelled. I know how hard it is for you there alone. I’m trying, Shweta. Really."


Hearing his voice—familiar, weary, and laced with that desperate affection—grounded her. It was an anchor to her reality, pulling her back from the precipice of her wandering thoughts.


"I know," she said softly, clutching the phone tighter. "I'm sorry too. I shouldn't have thrown the gift. It was... it was lovely. I was just frustrated."


"I'll be home this weekend," he promised, his voice brightening slightly. "The double shifts are done for now. I’ll bring some *mishti* from that shop you like near the station."


"Okay," she whispered. "Take care of yourself, Ani. Don't skip meals."


"I won't. You too. Love you."


"Love you."


She hung up and let out a long, shaky breath. The conversation had settled the erratic beating of her heart. This was her life. Ani was her husband. The incident with Sumu was just an awkward misunderstanding, nothing more.


Feeling lighter, Shweta went about her morning routine with renewed purpose. She showered, scrubbing her skin vigorously as if to wash away the lingering confusion of the previous day. She dressed in a fresh cotton saree, a simple sky-blue dbang that felt cool against her skin, and gathered her wet laundry in a plastic bucket.


The house had a flat, open terrace on the first floor, adjacent to the room Sumu used as his office. It was a sun-drenched space where the family usually dried their clothes or laid out pickles in jars.


Humming a low tune, Shweta stepped out onto the terrace. The heat hit her instantly, rising from the concrete floor that was already baking under the sun. The air smelled of wet cement and evaporating rain. She moved to the clotheslines strung across the far side, shaking out the wet pleats of her petticoat.


As she reached up to clip the fabric to the line, a movement in her peripheral vision caught her eye.


She turned her head and froze.


On the section of the terrace directly outside the glass doors of the home office, Sumu was working out.


He had evidently decided to take advantage of the morning sun. He wasn't wearing his usual polo shirt or the casual tees he wore around the house. He was dressed only in a pair of dark athletic shorts and a thin, white vest—a *sando-ganji*—that clung to his torso like a second skin.


Shweta’s hand, holding the plastic clip, remained suspended in mid-air.


He was doing push-ups, his body moving with a rhythmic, powerful cadence. Down, up. Down, up. With every descent, the muscles in his back and shoulders bunched and rippled beneath the thin fabric. His skin, usually pale from his indoor life, was flushed and glistening with a heavy sheen of sweat.


He paused, pushing himself up to a kneeling position to grab a pair of dumbbells resting on the floor. As he lifted them, curling his arms toward his chest, the veins in his forearms popped, thick and corded.


Shweta stared. She knew she should look away. She knew she should finish hanging her laundry and retreat into the house. But her feet felt welded to the hot concrete.


She had never seen a man look like this. Ani was strong, yes—he worked in a steel plant, after all—but his was a strength born of exhaustion, a lean, wiry toughness carved by hardship. Sumu looked different. He looked... sculpted. Powerful. There was a vitality to his movements, a surplus of energy that radiated from him.


A drop of sweat rolled down his temple, tracing the line of his jaw before dripping onto his collarbone. Shweta watched the droplet’s path, her mouth suddenly dry. She watched the way his chest heaved with controlled breaths, the way the damp vest became translucent, hinting at the definition of his abs underneath.


It was a trance, a suspension of time where the moral compass she had just reset with Ani’s phone call spun wildly out of control. She wasn't looking at him as a brother-in-law. She was looking at him as a specimen of masculinity that was utterly, devastatingly attractive.


Sumu, engrossed in the burn of his muscles and the loud music likely playing in his earbuds, remained completely oblivious. He finished his set, dropping the weights with a heavy clank that echoed on the roof. He stood up, stretching his arms high above his head, his shirt riding up to expose a strip of taut waist.


He wiped his face with the back of his hand, turned, and walked back into the air-conditioned sanctuary of his office, sliding the glass door shut behind him.


The spell broke.


Shweta blinked, the sudden absence of him leaving a jarring void in the bright sunlight. She looked down at her hand, still clutching the laundry clip so tightly her knuckles were white.


She was trembling. And she realized, with a flush that had nothing to do with the midday sun, that she was sweating profusely. Her own saree was sticking to her back, her breath coming in short, shallow puffs. She stood there for a long moment, staring at the empty space where he had been, the image of his glistening muscles burned into her mind, overlaying the memory of Ani’s tired voice from just an hour ago.