Adultery Born of Deceit

[untamable_rohini]

That night, after Tulika had fallen into a restless sleep beside him, Vikram quietly took her purse from the bedside table. He pulled out the crumpled visiting card. The cheap paper felt warm in his fingers, as if it had been burning a hole in their lives for weeks.
He didn’t sleep.
The next morning, while Tulika was in the bathroom, he saved the number in his phone under the name “Property Client – M”. He told himself he was just going to gather information. Nothing more.
Three days later, on a Thursday afternoon, Vikram took an auto to Laxmi Nagar.
He found Malhotra exactly where Tulika had described—sitting on the same blue plastic chair under the tin awning, sipping tea from a kulhad. The man looked up as Vikram approached, his small eyes narrowing behind the thick glasses.
“You must be the husband,” Malhotra said with a slow smile, gesturing to the empty chair opposite him. “Sit. Chai?”
Vikram sat. The plastic chair creaked under his weight. “No chai. Let’s talk.”
Malhotra nodded, waving away the tea-w,.'. He leaned back, folding his hands over his belly. “So. Your wife has been telling you.”
“She has.”
“Good. Saves time. Let’s speak like men. Twenty lakhs. Cash. No bank transfer, no UPI. Half upfront, half after prelims result. That’s my final offer.”
Vikram’s jaw tightened. He had come prepared to hear thirty, maybe twenty-eight. Twenty felt like a trap.
“Too much,” Vikram said, surprised by how steady his voice sounded. “We don’t have that kind of money.”
Malhotra chuckled softly. “Nobody has it lying around, beta. That’s why people come to me. You borrow, you sell gold, you take a personal loan—people do what they have to do. Twenty is already generous. Last month I took twenty-seven from an engineer for his son.”
Vikram’s mind raced. Twenty lakhs. He could liquidate the fixed deposit they had saved for a new fridge. He could borrow ten from his cousin in Ludhiana. Maybe mortgage the flat for a short term. The numbers spun in his head like a roulette wheel.
“Fifteen,” Vikram countered, even though his stomach twisted at his own audacity. “Fifteen, and I can arrange it faster.”
Malhotra’s smile faded. He picked up his kulhad and took a slow sip, watching Vikram over the rim. “Fifteen won’t even get her past the first gate. You think this is like buying vegetables? The people I deal with don’t negotiate like this. They have fixed rates. I’m already giving you a family discount because your wife is… persistent.”
Vikram felt a flush of anger, but he swallowed it. “Then tell me exactly what twenty gets us. I need to know it’s real.”
Malhotra leaned forward, lowering his voice. “Twenty gets her name moved up by 800 to 1200 ranks. Enough to clear prelims comfortably. After that, if you want mains help, we can discuss separately. But prelims is guaranteed. If she doesn’t clear after my help, you get your money back. I don’t do business on maybes.”
Vikram’s heart pounded. A guarantee. That word tasted dangerous—sweet and poisonous at the same time. He thought of Tulika sitting in that classroom for six years. He thought of the way her shoulders slumped when she checked the mock results. He thought of the credit card bills hidden in his drawer. He thought of finally having breathing room, of telling her they could afford another attempt without panic, of maybe even taking her on a small vacation.
But mostly, he thought of what would happen if it went wrong. If they paid and nothing changed. If Tulika ever found out he had gone behind her back.
“Eighteen,” Vikram said, his voice lower now. “Eighteen, half now, half after prelims. And I need some proof that you can actually deliver.”
Malhotra studied him for a long moment. The rain started again, light at first, drumming on the tin roof above them.
“Eighteen and a half,” Malhotra replied. “And proof I cannot give until money is in my hand. That’s how this world works, Kapoor sahib. Trust is expensive.”
Vikram stared at the muddy water pooling near his shoes. His mind screamed at him to get up, to walk away, to tell Tulika to keep studying like she always had.
But the number eighteen and a half kept echoing.
He looked up. “I need a few days to arrange the money.”
Malhotra smiled again, slow and knowing. “Take your time. But don’t take too long. Opportunities like this have a habit of disappearing.”