Adultery My Fiancee's Happiness

[sakurasan]

Chapter 5 Bad boy

They were finally home. Rohan parked under the neem and killed the engine.

Isha stepped down in her saree, slower than usual.

“Come,” he said.

Before they reached the main door, the women were already there.

Rohan’s mother, Lata, came first, aarti plate in both hands, the lamp steady. Two neighbour ladies followed with flowers and a small bowl of kumkum.

“Stand still, beta,” she said, smiling.

She circled the plate once, twice. The flame passed across Isha’s face. A thumb of kumkum touched her forehead. Petals landed on her hair. One of the neighbour women pressed a sweet into her palm and closed her fingers over it like a secret.

“Welcome home,” Lata said.

Isha’s throat tightened. “Thank you, Aunty.”

“Aunty is for guests. Call me Ma.”

Colour rose in Isha’s cheeks. She nodded.

Rohan’s father came out of the hall and folded his hands.

“Good you came. Grandfather has been asking since morning.”

“We started early, Baba,” Rohan said.

Before anyone could settle into talk, two men appeared at the gate calling his father’s name. One held a folded paper. The other kept glancing toward the fields.

“I’ll be back,” his father said, already moving. “Don’t wait for me. Take her to him first.”

He went with them across the front, panchayat voice switching on before he cleared the cows.

Lata wiped her hands on her pallu and tipped her head toward the inner rooms.

“Come. He wakes and sleeps in short spells. We should catch him while he is up.”

They crossed the big hall in the middle of the house. Bedroom doors lined both sides. The kitchen opened off one end. Lata stopped at the last room on the right.

Grandfather lay propped on pillows. His eyes were already open when they entered. Rohan bent and touched his feet. Isha followed, the saree whispering as she knelt.

The old man’s hand found Rohan’s head first, then hers. His palm was dry and light.

“So this is the one,” he said. His Marathi-tinged English came slow. “You found a pretty wife, boy. God saved some sense for you after all.”

Rohan smiled. “She is Isha, Ajja.”

“I heard. Sit. Let me see her properly.”

They sat on the low stools by the bed. He looked at Isha for a long time, not unkind, only thorough, the way old soldiers studied a map.

“Your face is honest,” he said. “That is rarer than beauty. Keep that.”

“I will try,” she said.

He chuckled once, then drifted. “In service, honesty got men killed and also saved them. Funny thing.” His eyes went somewhere past the wall. “First posting, Assam. Rain for weeks. We slept in boots because the ground never dried…”

The story unfolded the way old stories do, with detours and names that meant nothing to her and everything to him. Rohan listened like he had heard versions of it before and still would not rush the man. Isha kept her face turned to the bed, smiling when he paused for breath.

Her handbag buzzed against her knee. She slipped the phone out under the fold of her pallu. Kunal’s name sat on the screen. Below it, a message, then images still loading. She pushed it back into the bag. Grandfather was already on the next post, a train journey, a junior who had forgotten his rifle. Isha nodded at the right places and kept her hands quiet in her lap.

In Pune, Kunal watched the ticks turn blue. No reply.

He closed the chat, opened it again, and left it alone. Maybe she did not like them.

Grandfather’s voice thinned, then stopped. His eyes closed mid-sentence. Lata rose at once and settled the sheet higher on his chest.

“He will sleep now,” she whispered. “Come.”

Outside the room, Rohan glanced at Isha.

“Sorry. I hope he did not make you sleep.”

“Those were beautiful stories,” she said. “I loved it.”

Lata smiled.

“Rohan, show her our place. Isha, I will be in the kitchen if you need me.”

She went ahead, already calling something to the neighbour women who had stayed to help.

Rohan walked her through the house. Hall, four bedrooms, kitchen, store room.

“So many rooms for only you?” she said.

“They built for a bigger family than they got.”

He took her out the back.

Five acres of field ran behind the house. Near the rear wall stood the well, its stone rim nearly four feet thick. They sat on it. The wall was warm under their hands. Wind lifted Isha’s saree and kept pulling at the pallu.

She pushed the cloth into Rohan’s hand. “Hold this.”

Then she took the phone out.

The photos had finished loading long ago. She opened the first one.

For a second she did not recognise herself. The woman on the screen looked like someone from a film poster.

She scrolled through the rest. Every frame gave her the same shock.

“Rohan,” she said. “This does not look like me. He made me look like a movie star.”

He leaned over and looked. A small smile pulled at his mouth.

“I told you. You’re in good hands.”

An hour under the photos, a second message waited.

Kunal: Did you like them

She stared at that line longer than the pictures.

“He asked if I liked them,” she said. “What shall I reply to him?”

Rohan kept his eyes on the field.

“He asked you. Not me.”

She looked at him. Same tone he used whenever she waited for him to choose for her.

Isha typed.

Isha: Hi Kunal

The reply came at once.

Kunal: Sorry. I think I did not do justice to you.

Isha: What are you even talking about?

Kunal: I know you did not like them. That is why you did not reply.

Isha: Did not like them? Are you crazy? I love them. It is surreal. I am already imagining walking into the wedding hall looking like that. You are a God-blessed talent.

Her thumb was still on the phone when the cooker whistled from the kitchen.

She stood. “I should check on Ma.”

Rohan gave the pallu back into her hand. She went in.

In the kitchen, Lata was already at the stove, lid in one hand. Isha moved to help.

“No, no,” she said, waving her off with the free hand. “You are the guest today. Sit. I will take care.”

Isha sat on the low stool near the door. Lata talked about the rice and how much spice Rohan could take. Isha nodded at the right places.

She faced the stove, back to her. Isha looked at the phone in her lap.

Kunal: Cool. You made my day. Those pics are all you. I did nothing.

Isha: All me? Then why does every photo look like your work?

Kunal: Because the camera finally got a subject worth staring at.

“Isha, do you drink buttermilk at lunch?” Lata asked, back still to her.

“Yes, Ma.”

Isha: Keep talking like that and I will start believing you.

She smiled at the stove. Isha locked the phone and kept her face soft.

They sat for lunch in the hall. His father was back. He spoke to Rohan about the wedding. The hall was booked. Guests from Pune needed confirming. Guest count came first.

“Confirm how many cars we need from Pune,” his father said. “And the stage people want the advance this week.”

Rohan nodded and took more rice. Under the table, Isha’s phone stirred. She opened it on her thigh.

Kunal: Cameras naturally love you. Hope I am blessed to click you again.

Isha: What hope. I need you to take all the wedding concepts you do for every couple. I want it all.

Kunal: No way. You will hate me if we do all.

Isha: What do you mean?

Kunal: I am a very bad boy. I can’t say more. But I promise, we will shoot whatever you want.

She stared at that last line. In the café he had said Rohan censored the truth. When she asked what was left out, Rohan stopped him. Now Kunal was holding something back again.

She locked the phone. The chat sat unfinished in her head. Lata looked at her.

“Salt is fine?”

“Delicious, Ma,” Isha said. “This is the best food I have had.”

She smiled. “At least you appreciate it.”

“Mom, it is regular for us,” Rohan said.

“I can’t cook like this,” Isha said. “I am nervous.”

“Don’t worry,” Lata said. “Rohan hangs with me in the kitchen whenever he is here. He knows how to cook well.”

After lunch Rohan went out with his father to check the wedding guest list. Lata touched Isha’s elbow.

“Come. I want to show you something.”

She took her to a side bedroom and shut the door. For a moment she only looked at Isha, as if measuring a dream against the girl in front of her.

“I always wanted a daughter,” Lata said. “After Rohan, the doctors said no more. So I waited.”

She unlocked a tall cupboard and pulled both doors wide.

Folded silk sarees sat in soft greens and wine. Chiffon piles that would move in city air. Lengths of jean cloth stacked beside printed kurti fabric. Soft cotton tees in loose cuts. One shelf held soft night-suit cloth still in shop folds.

Lata watched her face. “These are all for you. Take whatever you like to Pune today. The cloth, get it stitched to your fit.”

Isha’s hand hovered over a chiffon fold. “Ma. I don’t know what to say. Did you get all this after the engagement?”

“Years of collection.”

“You have really good taste. I love them all.”

Lata laughed once. “I have been buying ever since Rohan started earning.”

“Then I have been getting lucky even before I met him.”

“Hmm.” Lata took out her favourite in hand. “I need to tell you this. The men in our family are good. Too good. They don’t know the concept of self. If someone comes for help, they give whatever is in their hand.”

“I know. I have seen Rohan.”

“Yes. We could have had more land by now. All we have is good name and goodwill.”

“I understand what you are trying to say.”

“That is why I take the excess from his salary. Leave it with him and it walks out with the next person who asks. After marriage, that charge comes to you.”

Isha nodded. “Don’t worry, Ma. I will take care.”

She turned back to the cupboard and shook her head at the tees and the jean cloth. “Ma, I don’t wear these.”

She left the silks where they were. Those could wait for married days. Her hands went to chiffon and printed georgette, soft folds she could wear in Pune now. This one for the way he looked at her pallu. That print for a movie evening. The wine chiffon if she wanted his eyes stuck. Eight sarees stacked neat in the suitcase. Work for Savita, her mind said, already counting blouses.

Lata watched the stack grow and smiled, the kind of smile that had waited years. She pressed the suitcase into Isha’s hands and held on a second longer than the gift needed.

By late afternoon they started back to Pune. Four hours of road ahead. Fields first, then highway, then the slow push into city traffic.

For a long stretch she only watched the land go. Then she turned to him.

“Your parents are gems. I envy you. Growing up here.”

Rohan smiled at the road. “Ma was waiting for a day like this.” He glanced at her. “Your parents are both college teachers. They run the house the same way.”

“You will never understand what I went through,” she said. “Forget it.”

She left it there. Kilometers passed. A bus overtook them. Somewhere after the next town her mind circled back to lunch, to Kunal’s smile, to that one line he had thrown and she had locked away.

“But I am curious about your friend.”

“What is curious about him?”

“He said you did not tell the whole truth about him.”

“It is not like that.”

“Come on. Spill. You can’t lie to me.”

Rohan checked the mirror and changed lanes. “See. He is a bit different from most people in his profession.”

“He has exceptional talent. But what is the big deal in that?”

“That is true. But I am not talking about talent.” He took a breath. “Let me put it this way. He signs a non-disclosure agreement with every client. He can never take credit. He can never share even one pic he takes of them. If any image leaks, he pays a huge penalty. Those clients pay heavily for that service alone.”

Isha frowned at the dashboard. People paid so that their own photos stayed hidden? In her world a photographer put work on Instagram and prayed for likes. She sat with that until another town slipped past.

“So his clients like privacy. So what?”

“You are still being a novice,” Rohan said. “The privacy is because he takes intimate pics of them. Not the regular couple pics. Real intimate ones.”

Isha stared at him. The lunch chat kicked in her head at once. You will hate me if we do all. I am a very bad boy. Her throat worked once.

“Who will do that? You are pranking me.”

“See. That is why I never shared this with you. He is really, really good in erotic art photography. And he has a clientele who pay him heavily for it.”

She looked at the road and did not see it. Erotic art, paying clients, money for naked work. Words she had never had to hold next to a real person she had sat across at lunch. Questions piled with no order. Who asks for this. Who agrees. Where do they find him. How does a man walk into a room and make that normal. Heat moved low in her belly. She pressed her thighs together once and kept her mouth shut for a long stretch of highway.

When she trusted her voice again, it came smaller.

“Have you seen those pics?”

“On the system. He classifies and saves all his work. He is highly organised that way. Mainly three drives. One for regular and romantic. One for intimate, couples kissing, hugging, crazy poses, but cloth still covering what matters. And the last one he names Explicit.”

“So you have seen all those.”

“Actually, I have seen only the first two. I have never opened the Explicit drive. Kunal has no issue with me seeing it. But I did not feel it was the right thing to do.”

She believed him. He did not lie to her. Still the word Explicit made her swallow hard before she asked.

“What goes into the Explicit folder?”

“As I said, I have never seen them.”

“You should have some idea.”

Rohan’s mouth tipped once. “His room has a lot of adult toys. I think those should be involved. A few items I have heard him mention. Some women want special pictures of themselves which they will gift to their men. Some honeymoon couples become really, really bold for the camera. That kind of thing.”

“Do people like those really exist?”

“His bank account shows they do exist. Also, these are my guesses only. Again, never seen them.”

She turned to the window. She did not really know what adult toys were, and listening had left her panties wet. She stayed still in the seat and let another stretch of highway pass before she spoke again.

“Is that all? If I find you did not give me the full picture, I will feel hurt that you did not trust me.”

“There is one more thing. But it does not matter.”

“I will decide that. You say what it is.”

Rohan’s hands stayed on the wheel. “Many models he shoots… they fall for his charms. I have seen many mornings. Beautiful girls coming out of his room. They smile at me and run away.”

Isha’s breath caught. Beautiful girls leaving his room in the morning. The picture stacked on top of everything else until she could not sort which question came first. How many. How he talked to them. Whether he even remembered their names. She stared at the dash lights until they blurred.

“How many?”

“I can’t keep count. That many. That’s all.”

She took a long time with that. Fields had thinned. Towns had thickened. When she spoke, her voice was softer.

“What about love? Doesn’t he have anyone? What about marriage?”

“His words,” Rohan said. “I get free lunch anytime. Why should I hire a cook?”

“No way,” she said, still staring at the road.

By the time Pune’s lights began to show, traffic had slowed them to a crawl.

Rohan checked the mirror again. “I am not sure how Kunal will take it if he knows I have outed him all to you.”

“Relax. I’m not telling him.”

She meant the promise. The car shook through the city bumps and her nipples dragged like knife points against the blouse. She crossed her ankles and stared at the traffic like that would hide it.

At her gate he killed the engine and got out. Isha stepped down. He pulled the suitcase from the boot and set the handle in her hand.

“Now you know,” he said. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you about him.”

She shook her head, almost laughing. “You boys are so bad.”

“Not me,” he said. “I am your good boy. He is that bad boy.”

They laughed. He waited until she crossed the gate, then drove off.