Adultery Who Watches The Watchmen (continued)

[samgreenvalley]

What do I want?
 
The question echoed in the darkness behind her eyelids.
 
She wanted Dara—the old Dara—to walk through the door right now, grab her by the hair, and fuck her senseless. She wanted him to be angry that she'd been thinking about other men, jealous that she'd been planning a gangbang without him, possessive in that way that had made her feel so wanted in Mumbai.
 
She wanted him to say, "You're mine, memsaab. Mine. And anyone who touches you touches you because I allow it."
 
She wanted him to be in control. To take the choice away from her. To make the decision about Holika Dahan for her—yes or no, his call, his command.
 
But Dara wasn't that man anymore. And she didn't know how to get him back.
 
Maybe she couldn't. Maybe the old Dara had died in that shack when Muthu beat him, or in the hospital when she'd visited him every day, or in this quarter when she'd started cooking his meals and folding his clothes. Maybe she'd killed him, without meaning to, by agreeing to play house in the first place.
 
Be careful what you wish for.
 
The words Sharma had said to her, that first night in the clubhouse. She hadn't understood them then. She understood them now.
 
She'd wished for Dara to be her lover, her partner, her husband-for-two-months. And he'd become exactly that. But in becoming that, he'd stopped being the man she'd fallen into bed with on that roof in Mumbai.
 
You couldn't have both. You couldn't be someone's slut and someone's wife. The roles were incompatible. She'd learned that the hard way.
 
---
 
The door opened.
 
Menaka sat up, her heart lurching. But it wasn't Dara. It was the neighbor from the next quarter—a young woman named Priya, whose husband worked nights at a call center. She was holding a bowl of something steaming.
 
"Menaka ji," Priya said, stepping inside without waiting for an invitation. "I made too much khichdi. Thought you might want some."
 
"Oh. Thank you." Menaka took the bowl, her hands still trembling. "That's very kind."
 
Priya looked around the quarter, her eyes lingering on the unmade bed, on Menaka's flushed face, on the phone clutched in her hand. "Everything okay? You look... stressed."
 
"Just tired. Didn't sleep well."
 
"Ah." Priya nodded knowingly. "The heat. It's been terrible lately. My husband bought a cooler yesterday—you should get one too. Makes a world of difference."
 
"I'll think about it."
 
Priya lingered for a moment longer, as if waiting for an invitation to stay. When none came, she smiled—a tight, polite smile—and left, closing the door behind her.
 
Menaka set the khichdi on the table and stared at it. She wasn't hungry. She wasn't anything except hollow.
 
She picked up her phone again. No messages from Dara. No missed calls. Nothing.
 
Where are you?
 
The question pulsed in her temples like a second heartbeat.
 
She thought about calling him again. Thought about texting. Thought about walking to the main gate and demanding to know where her husband—her fake husband—had disappeared to.
 
But she didn't. Because she was tired. Because she was angry. Because she was so fucking horny that she couldn't think straight.
 
Instead, she lay back down on the bed, closed her eyes, and let her hand drift between her legs. She thought about Prakash. About the way he'd looked at her through the screen, his eyes hungry and knowing. About the things he'd said, the things she'd confessed, the way he'd listened without judging.
 
She thought about Dara. The old Dara. The one who'd pushed her against the water tank and made her his bitch.
 
She came in less than a minute, biting her lip to keep from crying out, her body arching off the bed as the wave crashed over her.
 
And then she lay there, spent and empty, and waited for Dara to come home.