[samgreenvalley]

Back in the quarters, I called Dara on his mobile. He picked up after three rings.


“There is a problem,” I said.


“What?”


“The secretary. He wants me to meet him tonight. Alone.”


Silence. Then, “What did you say?”


“I said I would think about it.”


More silence. I could hear him breathing.


“Menaka,” he finally said, “we need this job. But I will not force you. If you don’t want to go, we will find another way. I can talk to the head of security.”


“And say what? That your wife is too pretty and the secretary wants to fuck her?”


He laughed. It was a dry, humorless laugh. “You have changed, memsaab.”


“You changed me.”


“No. You were always this. You just didn’t know.”


We hung up. I spent the next hour staring at the ceiling, thinking about Mr. Sharma’s soft, white belly and his gold-rimmed glasses. He was not attractive. He was not young. His dick was probably small and his technique worse. But the power dynamic—a society secretary and a watchman’s wife—that was familiar. That was the same thrill I had felt with Dara, with Banke, with Muthu. The taboo of class. The transgression.


I decided I would go.