17-08-2026, 12:41 AM
Kulkarni Kaka calling...
The phone vibrated. She pressed red. Cut.
Twenty seconds later: Kulkarni Kaka calling...
Red. Cut.
Kulkarni Kaka: Two times you cut my call. My heart can't take more. Please Devika.
She held the phone. Bit her lower lip. The smile was permanent now—carved into her face, impossible to remove.
Kulkarni Kaka calling...
She let it ring. Three times. Four. Five.
Picked up.
Silence.
"Hello?" His voice. That familiar Marathi-accented Hindi. Soft. Careful. Like a man approaching a cat he'd accidentally scared.
She said nothing.
"Devika? Are you there?"
"Hmm." Cold. Flat.
"Thank God. I thought you'll never pick up." She heard him exhale—long, ragged, the breath of a man who'd been holding air in his lungs for five days. "Devika, I am really sorry. Truly. From my heart."
"Which heart? The one that sends one-line messages? 'Make your own chai, beta?' That heart?"
"I know, I know. It was wrong. I was surrounded by people. My cousin was crying every hour. I couldn't—"
"You couldn't type two extra sentences? 'I miss you, Devika. I am thinking of you.' That takes ten seconds. You couldn't find ten seconds in five days?"
A pause. She heard him swallow.
"You're right. There is no excuse. I was... I was also confused, Devika. About what happened between us. That night. After you left, I lay in that bed and your smell was everywhere—on the pillow, on the sheet, on my hands. And I kept thinking—this beautiful young girl, this educated woman, she chose me. Why? How? What does she want from a fat old man with glasses and grey hair?"
Her grip on the phone tightened.
"And then the funeral call came and I left. And on the bus to Satara, I thought—maybe this is good. Maybe distance will make her forget. Maybe she'll go back to her husband and her normal life and pretend it never happened. Because what can I give her? Really? What do I have?"
"You have—" She stopped. Pressed her lips together.
"I have what, Devika?"
"Nothing. You have nothing. You said it yourself."
"Don't be cruel, beta."
"I'm not being cruel. I'm being honest. You left me here alone with—" Her voice cracked. Thin hairline fracture running through the word. She covered it with a cough. "You showed me everything, kaka. That night. You showed me what my body could feel. What I was missing. And then you just... disappeared."
"I didn't disappear. I went for a funeral—"
"Same thing. Result is same. I was here. Alone. Every night. And my body was—" She closed her eyes. The words sat in her throat like hot stones. "I couldn't sleep. I couldn't eat properly. I tried to... by myself... and it didn't work. Nothing worked. You broke something in me and then left without fixing it."
Silence on the line. Ten seconds. Fifteen.
"Devika." His voice had changed. Dropped lower. That register she recognized—the one from the rainy night, from the bed, from the moment he'd entered her and whispered her name like a prayer. "When I was inside you... when I felt your body open for me... do you think I forgot that? Do you think I can forget how your back arched? How your fingers dug into my shoulders? How you said my name—not 'kaka,' not 'uncle'—my name. Kulkarni. You said it like nobody has said it in twenty years."
Her breath caught. Heat pooled in her stomach. Her thighs pressed together on the bed, nightgown riding up.
"Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Don't talk like that. I'm still angry with you."
"I know. Be angry. But let me tell you—every night in Satara, on that old cot with my cousin snoring next to me, I closed my eyes and I was back in my bed with you. Your weight on my chest. Your hair in my face. The sound you made when I—"
"Kaka—"
"—when I found that spot inside you. That little gasp. Like you were surprised your own body could do that. That sound, Devika—I will carry it in my ears till I die."
She pressed her palm against her sternum. Her heart hammered under it. Between her thighs, the familiar ache returned—sharp, specific, demanding.
"You can't just... say these things and make everything okay."
"I'm not trying to make everything okay. I'm telling you the truth. That's all."
A pause. She heard his breathing. He heard hers. Two people in different cities, connected by a phone signal and something darker.
"How is Arjun?"
The question landed like ice water on a burn.
"Why are you asking about Arjun?"
"Just asking. Is he home?"
"Night shift. Again. He left at eight-thirty."
"Good." The word came out before he could filter it. She heard the greed in it—raw, undisguised. "I mean—good that you can talk freely. Not good that—"
"I know what you meant."
Another pause. Then his voice shifted—softer, almost tender.
"Devika... you remember that first night? Not the rain night. Before that. When I came into your bedroom while Arjun was sleeping."
Her stomach dropped. "Don't—"
"When I sprayed that sleeping thing and he didn't wake up. And I leaned over you. And kissed you. Right there, next to your husband. Your lips were so soft... you were half asleep... and you kissed me back. You don't remember?"
"I remember." Barely a whisper.
"That was the first time I tasted you. With your husband six inches away. His hand was on your waist and my mouth was on your mouth. Do you know how that felt? Like stealing sugar from God's own kitchen."
Her eyes were closed now. Her free hand gripped the bedsheet.
"Give me one kiss, Devika."
"What?"
"Through the phone. One kiss. On my lips. Please."
"Kaka, that's—no. I'm not your wife. I'm not your—whatever. I'm not kissing the phone like some college girl."
"Just one. Small one. For this old man who hasn't slept properly in five days because he can't stop thinking about your mouth."
"No."
"Please."
"I said no."
"One kiss. And I'll let you go back to being angry."
A beat. Two.
She brought the phone close to her lips. Pressed them against the screen. Quick. Light. The faintest sound—barely a kiss, more like a breath with contact.
"There. Happy?"
"Devika..." His voice had gone rough. Scbangd raw. "That was not a kiss. That was a mosquito landing."
"That's all you're getting."
"One more. On my lips. Properly. The way you kissed me that night."
She pulled the phone back. Looked at the screen—his contact photo, those round spectacles, that thin grey mustache. The face of a man who'd been inside her.
She pressed her lips to the phone again. Slower this time. Longer. A real kiss—the kind that involved pressure and softness and the smallest parting of lips. She heard it through the speaker—a wet, intimate sound that filled the bedroom.
"Ohh..." His moan vibrated through the phone speaker and settled in her lower belly. "Devika... your lips... even through the phone I can feel them. So soft. So sweet. Like you put that lip gloss... that strawberry one..."
"It's not strawberry. It's cherry."
"Cherry..." He breathed the word like it was sacred. "Kiss me again. Please. One more."
She didn't argue this time. Brought the phone to her mouth. Kissed it—long, slow, pressing her lips hard against the glass screen. The sound was unmistakable now—wet, full, the unmistakable noise of a woman kissing deeply. Her tongue grazed the screen before she could stop herself and she tasted glass and dust and didn't care.
"Mmm..." She pulled back. Her lips glistened.
"Your sound..." Kulkarni's breathing was heavy now. Ragged. "That sound you made—mmm—say it again. Say my name with that sound."
"Kulkarni..." The word left her mouth wrapped in a moan she didn't plan. Low. From somewhere behind her navel. "Kulkarni, I missed you... I missed you so much, kaka... you don't know what these days were like..."
"Tell me."
"My body was on fire. Every night. Every morning. I couldn't—nothing was enough. My own hands weren't enough. I tried and tried and—" Her voice broke into something between a laugh and a sob. "You ruined me."
"I didn't ruin you, Devika. I woke you up. There's a difference."
"Same thing."
He kissed the phone. She heard it—his lips against the screen, that rough old mouth pressing hard, and the sound sent a shiver straight down her spine to the wet heat between her thighs.
"My turn," she whispered, and kissed back. Harder. A long, smooching kiss that filled the silence of the empty flat with sounds no wife should be making at nine in the morning. Her lips parted against the screen, creating suction, creating the obscene wet peel of mouth leaving glass that lasted three, four, five seconds.
"Devika... oh God... Devika..." His voice crumbled. She heard his breathing spike—short, sharp inhales through his nose. "The way you kiss... your mouth should be illegal... it should be registered as a weapon..."
She laughed. A real laugh—surprised, pleased, giddy with the absurd intimacy of kissing a phone screen while her husband's laptop charger still sat plugged into the wall.
"Your turn," she said. "Kiss me back."
He did. She heard the smack of his lips through the speaker—rougher than hers, less precise, but desperate. Hungry. The sound of a man drinking water after a long fast.
She kissed again. Longer. Moaning his name between each press of lips against glass. "Kulkarni... mmm... kaka... I missed this... missed your mouth..."
"I missed everything," he groaned. "Your mouth. Your neck. That spot behind your ear where you shiver when I—"
"Don't. You're making it worse."
"Worse how?"
"You know how."
He kissed the phone again. She responded. Back and forth—a volley of kisses through cellular signals, through satellite and tower and electromagnetic wave, each one wetter than the last, each one drawing longer moans from both throats. The bedroom filled with the sounds of their shared hunger—the smack and peel of lips, the ragged breathing, the whispered names that dissolved into groans.
"Devika," he said, voice steady now with something that wasn't tenderness. Something that was plan. Decision. "I want to see you."
"You can see my photo—"
"Video call. I want to see your face while you kiss me. I want to see your eyes."
Her stomach flipped. "Kaka, no. That's— I'll feel shy."
"Shy? After what we did on my bed? After what your body did under me? You're telling me shy?"
"That's different. In person is different. On camera I'll look—"
"Beautiful. You'll look beautiful. The way you look every single day that I've been watching you from my doorway and dying inside."
She pressed her palm against her burning cheek.
"Where are your relatives?"
"All left. I'm alone in the house. Door is locked."
She picked at the hem of her nightgown. The peach cotton sat high on her thighs, creased from sleep, thin from years of washing. Underneath she wore nothing—no bra, no underwear. She'd slept in just the nightgown.
"Okay."
She opened WhatsApp. Tapped his name. Tapped the video call icon.
The screen flickered. Connected.
His face filled her phone. Round spectacles reflecting light from a window behind him. Thin grey mustache. White kurta, top two buttons open, showing the edge of his collarbone and the beginning of grey chest hair. His eyes—magnified behind the lenses—locked onto her.
Her face appeared in the small corner box. Loose hair. Flushed cheeks. Lips swollen and glistening from kissing glass. The thin strap of her nightgown visible on one shoulder.
Neither spoke.
His mouth opened slightly. His tongue moved across his lower lip. Those eyes—small, round, ordinary behind their innocent spectacles—moved across her image with the slow deliberation of a man unwrapping a gift he'd waited decades to receive.
Devika's breath came shallow. She watched him watch her. Felt his gaze through the screen like heat through glass—filtered but not diminished. Her free hand gripped her own thigh under the frame.
"Devika..." His voice was a scbangd whisper. "You look..."
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. The gesture lifted the nightgown strap a fraction, showing the soft round of her shoulder.
His eyes followed the movement. His jaw tightened.
She looked at him—this old man in a borrowed house in Satara, grey and spectacled and desperate—and felt something she couldn't name move through her chest like warm water.
Want. Not just physical. Something deeper. Something worse.
Devika pressed her lips to the phone screen — slow, deliberate, her eyes half-closed. The glass warmed under her mouth. She held the kiss for three full seconds, her breath fogging the camera lens, and when she pulled back a thin string of saliva connected her lower lip to the screen before breaking.
Kulkarni watched her lips pull away — wet, glistening, parted. His groan came through the speaker raw and unfiltered. He brought his own phone to his mouth and kissed it hard — she heard the rough press of his stubbled lips, the desperate smack of a man trying to consume glass.
"Again," he whispered.
She kissed the screen. Softer this time. A brush. Then harder — pressing until her lips flattened against the surface, her tongue grazing the edge of the camera cutout. Saliva pooled at the corner of her mouth. She didn't wipe it.
"Your lips, Devika..." His voice had turned to gravel. "Wet like that... shining... I want to bite them. Just gently. Just enough to hear you—"
She kissed again. Cut him off mid-sentence with the sound of her mouth against glass. The wet peel when she pulled back filled the silence of the empty bedroom like a confession spoken too loud.
Her breathing was visible now — chest rising and falling, the thin peach nightgown moving with each inhale. Her lips glistened. A drop of saliva sat on her chin. She didn't notice it. Or didn't care.
Kulkarni's face on the screen had changed. The grandfatherly softness was gone. His jaw was set. His nostrils flared with each breath. Behind the round spectacles, his eyes burned with something that went beyond want — something territorial, possessive, the look of a man who'd tasted ownership and couldn't go back to visiting hours.
"Devika."
"Hmm?"
"I want to marry you."
The words landed in the bedroom like a stone thrown through a window. She blinked.
"What?"
"I want to marry you. Make you my wife. So I can love you without fear. Without hiding. Without checking if Arjun is asleep or if the door is locked or if someone is watching." His voice cracked at the edges. "I'm tired of stealing, Devika. I want to own."
She stared at his face on the screen. This sixty-seven-year-old man with his grey mustache and round spectacles and white kurta open at the collar — sitting in a dead cousin's house in Satara, asking a twenty-four-year-old married woman to be his wife.
The absurdity of it hit her like a wave. She laughed — not cruelly, but with genuine disbelief.
"Kaka, why you want to marry me? You're already getting more than my husband gets."
His face fell. The burning eyes dimmed. His mouth opened, closed, opened again. She saw the hurt move across his features like cloud shadow crossing a field.
"I'm serious, Devika. I'm not joking."
"I know you're serious. That's why it's funny." She wiped the saliva from her chin with the back of her hand. "Think about it, kaka. My husband comes home every night and gets nothing. Four minutes and snoring. You got my whole body for one night and I'm here kissing my phone screen for you at nine in the morning. What more you want?"
"Everything. I want everything."
"You already have everything. Marriage is just a piece of paper and a thali. What does it change?"
"It changes everything. It means you're mine. Not borrowed. Not stolen. Mine."
She went quiet. The word mine sat in the air between them — heavy, warm, dangerous.
"I can't marry another man, kaka. I'm already married. And even if I wasn't—" She shook her head. Her loose hair swayed against her shoulders. "What will people say? Twenty-four-year-old Kerala girl married to sixty-seven-year-old Maharashtrian uncle? My amma will have a heart attack before the muhurtham is fixed."
His face crumbled. Not dramatically — he wasn't a man given to theatrical sadness. But the light behind his spectacles dimmed. His shoulders dropped. He looked away from the camera, and she saw his jaw work, chewing on disappointment.
Devika watched him. This old man who'd held her through a rainy night. Who'd made her body sing in ways her husband never had. Who sat in a distant city missing her so badly he'd just proposed marriage through a WhatsApp video call.
Something softened inside her chest. Not pity — something warmer. Tenderness, maybe. Or the particular ache of watching someone want what they cannot have.
"Kaka."
He didn't look at the camera.
"Kaka, look at me."
He turned. His eyes were wet behind the spectacles. Not crying — too proud for that — but the moisture was there. Thin. Visible.
She smiled. That shy, dimpled smile that made his heart stop every time she deployed it — the one she didn't know was a weapon, the one that came from somewhere innocent even when her words weren't.
"Okay. When we are together — just us, talking like this, alone — I am your wife. And you are my husband. Happy?"
His face transformed. The dimness vanished. His eyes widened behind the spectacles, mouth parting under the grey mustache, and for one unguarded second he looked like a boy who'd been handed a gift he'd stopped believing in.
"Really? You mean it?"
"I mean it. When it's just us. On the phone, in your flat, wherever. I'm your wife. But in front of the world—"
"In front of the world, I'm Kulkarni kaka. Harmless old uncle."
"Exactly."
He kissed the phone. A loud, grateful smack that made her laugh.
Devika leaned back against the headboard, phone held in front of her face, and let the laughter fade into something quieter. Something like wonder.
What did I just say? I just told a sixty-seven-year-old Pune man he's my husband. Me — Devika Menon from Thrissur. Kerala Christian family, convent-educated, married in Guruvayoor temple with four hundred guests and a gold thali worth two lakhs around my neck. I just told a bald, spectacled, paan-chewing old uncle he can call me wife.
And I meant it.
The realization should have horrified her. It didn't. It settled into her chest like warm milk — strange, unexpected, comforting.
"Devika."
"Hmm?"
"Can I ask something?"
"You just asked me to marry you. What's left to ask?"
His smile turned different. That specific tilt of his mouth under the mustache — the one that meant his mind had slipped from sentiment to appetite.
"I want to see you in saree."
She looked down at her nightgown. Faded peach. Thin straps. Wrinkled from sleep and from the restless movements of the last hour.
"Kaka, I can't change into saree now. It takes time to dbang properly."
"I'll wait."
"It takes fifteen-twenty minutes—"
"I have nowhere to go. I'll wait."
She rolled her eyes. But the corners of her mouth twitched.
"Fine. Hold on."
She set the phone on the bed, screen facing up. He'd see the ceiling fan. The white paint. The slow rotation of three blades.
"I'm still here," his voice said from the speaker. "Waiting. Patiently. Like a good husband."
She laughed despite herself and walked to the steel almirah.
Fifteen minutes later, she picked up the phone.
"Ready?"
"Show me."
She turned the camera. Let it sweep across her body in the dressing table mirror before turning it back to face her.
The saree was sea-foam green — soft cotton with a thin gold border. She'd dbangd it the way Saradha had taught her: low on the waist, the pleats arranged neat and tight, the pallu thrown over her left shoulder and pinned loosely enough that it framed rather than hid. Underneath, a sleeveless blouse — black, with thin straps instead of the usual short sleeves. The straps sat on her shoulders like two dark lines drawn on cream paper, exposing the full round of her upper arms, the soft hollow of her armpits, the bare skin from collarbone to shoulder blade.
She'd put on light makeup. A thin line of kajal. A dab of lip gloss — the cherry one. A small black bindi. Jasmine tucked into her hastily arranged bun.
Kulkarni's breath caught audibly through the speaker.
"Devika..."
"What?"
"You look... aiyyo..." He shook his head. His spectacles fogged momentarily — he removed them, wiped them on his kurta, put them back. "That blouse. Those straps. Your shoulders. And the saree sitting so low on your waist — I can see your..."
"My what?" She angled the camera downward briefly, showing the strip of bare skin between blouse hem and saree waist — three inches of soft flesh, the gentle crease of her waist fold, the shadow of her navel half-hidden by the dbangd fabric.
"That." His voice dropped. "That right there. That kills me, Devika."
She pulled the camera back up to her face. Smiled.
Both went quiet. The silence stretched — not uncomfortable but charged, like the air before a thunderstorm. She looked at his face on the screen. He looked at hers. Neither knew what to say next. The proposal, the acceptance, the saree change — all of it had depleted some reserve of words, leaving only the raw current that hummed between them.
She kissed the screen. Quick. Wet. The smack broke the silence.
"Why you want to see me in saree only? I have churidar also. Nightgown you already saw."
"Because in saree..." He paused, searching for words. "In saree you are something else, Devika. Any girl can look good in jeans or churidar. But saree — the way it moves on your body, the way the pallu falls, the way your waist shows and hides and shows again when you walk — that is art. You in saree is like watching a river."
Her cheeks flushed. She tucked hair behind her ear.
"Kaka is becoming poet now?"
"Your body makes poets out of old men."
She kissed the screen again. Long. Pressed her smile against the glass.
"Devika..."
"Hmm?"
"Can you dance for me?"
Her smile froze. She pulled back from the screen.
"Dance?"
"Just... small dance. Gentle. The way you move when you're humming in the kitchen — I've watched you through the wall, Devika. When you cook and listen to songs on your phone, your hips move. Your shoulders move. You don't know you're doing it but you do it and it's..."
"Kaka, what is this? I'm not some webcam dancer on the internet."
"No, no — I'm not saying like that. Just a small dance. For your husband." He smiled. Used the word deliberately. Watched it land.
"No."
"Please."
"I said no. I don't even dance properly. What I'll look like, dancing alone in my bedroom for a phone camera?"
"Beautiful. You'll look beautiful."
"No."
"Devika, please. Just two minutes. Any song. Any steps. I just want to see you move. In that saree. With those straps on your shoulders. Please."
She pressed her lips together. Shook her head. But something shifted behind her eyes — a curiosity she didn't want to acknowledge.
This is exactly like those webcam sites. Old men paying money to watch girls dance and strip on camera. And here I am, being asked to do it for free.
But those girls are strangers. This is... different. This is the man who held me all night. The man who asked me to be his wife. My... husband.
God, I actually thought that word without flinching.
She set the phone on the dresser, propped against the mirror. Stepped back. Her full body appeared in the frame — sea-foam saree, black strap blouse, bare arms, jasmine in dark hair.
"Like this? Just standing here like an idiot?"
"Put some music. Anything."
She opened her phone's music app. Scrolled. Picked something soft — a Tamil melody, slow tempo, the kind that played during romantic scenes in films. The first notes filled the bedroom.
She stood in the center of the room. Arms at her sides. Feet together. She looked at the camera — at his face watching from Satara — and felt her body lock up. Every joint stiff. Every muscle aware of being watched.
She swayed. Left. Right. A wooden pendulum in a cotton saree. Her arms came up halfway, dropped back down. She took a step to the side, turned, took another step. The movements were hesitant — like a college girl performing at an annual day function, counting beats in her head, terrified of missing one.
"Kaka, please, I can't do this." She stopped. Walked toward the camera. "I feel so strange. I don't know how to dance on camera. It's different from—"
"Just once, Devika. Properly. Please. You know what my friends pay to see on those online sites? Two thousand, three thousand rupees for ten minutes of a random woman dancing. And here my own wife is standing in front of me in the most beautiful saree I've ever seen, and she won't even—"
"You watch those sites?" Her voice sharpened. "You pay money to watch women dance and strip online? And now you want me to do the same thing?"
His face reddened. "Not strip — I never said strip. Just dance. And I don't watch those sites regularly, just sometimes when—"
"Sometimes when you're lonely and dirty and thinking about young women with your old—"
"Devika—"
"What kind of fantasy is this, kaka? You want me to be your webcam girl?"
"Not webcam girl. My wife. Dancing for her husband. Is that wrong?"
She stared at him through the screen. His round spectacled face. The grey mustache. The pleading eyes that managed to look both innocent and filthy simultaneously — a talent unique to men who'd spent decades perfecting the art of wanting without showing.
"Please, Devika. Just once. After this I won't ask again."
"You always say that. 'Just once.' 'After this I won't ask.' And then you ask again."
"This time I mean it."
"You always mean it."
"Please."
Webcam dancer. That's what I'll be. A twenty-four-year-old married woman dancing for a sixty-seven-year-old man's camera in her husband's bedroom while he's at office.
But... the idea of it. Dancing for someone who's watching. Someone who wants me. Someone whose eyes will track every movement of my hips, every sway of the pallu, every flash of bare waist. Someone who's getting hard watching me.
When did I start wanting to be watched?
"Okay."
She stepped back to the center of the room. Restarted the music. A different song this time — something slower, heavier, with a bass line that pulsed like a heartbeat.
She closed her eyes. Let the music enter through her feet. The first sway came from her hips — not the wooden pendulum of before but something liquid, something that lived in the joint between pelvis and spine. Her arms rose. Fingers extended. Wrists turned in slow circles.
She danced.
Not choreography. Not film steps or classical mudras. Just her body moving the way it wanted to move — the natural rhythm she carried in her bones, the Kerala girl's unconscious grace amplified by awareness, by the knowledge that a man was watching every inch of her with hunger dripping from his eyes.
Her hips drew circles. The saree fabric moved with them — the pleats separating and closing like a fan, the pallu sliding an inch down her shoulder before she caught it, held it, let it slip again. The sea-foam green caught the morning light from the window and glowed against her skin.
A message pinged on the video call chat.
Kulkarni Kaka: More seducing. Slow. Move your waist more.
She glanced at the screen. Her jaw set. Mock anger crossed her face — that specific expression of a woman who's annoyed but not enough to stop.
She rolled her eyes. Then turned back to the music and let her body respond to his demand.
Her waist moved. Slower now. Deliberate. The fold of flesh above her petticoat waistband creased and smoothed with each rotation. Her hands found her own hips — palms flat, fingers spread, framing the strip of bare skin that the low-dbangd saree exposed. She traced the saree's edge with her fingertip, following the fabric line from hip to navel and back.
Kulkarni Kaka: ????
Kulkarni Kaka: You are killing me
Kulkarni Kaka: ??
She saw the emojis appear in the chat box at the bottom of the screen. Kissing face. Fire. Devil. She bit her lower lip and a smile escaped — small, secret, pleased.
She continued. Her arms rose above her head, fingers interlocking, and the movement pulled her blouse upward, exposing the full landscape of her bare waist — the smooth expanse from rib cage to saree waist, the gentle curve of her sides, the twin hollows of her armpits visible beneath the thin straps.
Kulkarni Kaka: Your armpits... so smooth... I want to kiss there
Kulkarni Kaka: ???
She held the pose. Arms up. Armpits exposed. Swayed her hips in that position — her body becoming a slow, hypnotic pendulum of flesh and fabric. The jasmine in her hair loosened, petals drifting down her shoulder.
Then she turned. Back facing the camera.
Her spine was a straight line from neck to tailbone, the black blouse straps crossing bare shoulder blades that moved beneath skin like wings folded under silk. The saree bunched at her lower back, tucked tight into the petticoat waist, and below it — the full, heavy curve of her hips swayed in slow, deliberate arcs. Left. Right. Left. The sea-foam fabric clung to the shape of her buttocks, following every movement, revealing every contour.
Kulkarni Kaka: Your ass in that saree... I am going mad... turn around again slowly
Kulkarni Kaka: ????
Kulkarni Kaka: I want to grab and squeeze
She read the messages over her shoulder. Her face flushed — a deep pink that spread from her cheeks to the tips of her ears. She turned back to face the camera.
The music swelled. She bent forward — slowly, her back curving, hair falling around her face. The pallu dropped. The blouse neckline gaped. She looked straight into the camera through the curtain of her hair and blew a kiss.
Then another. Wet. Her lips parted, tongue visible for a fraction of a second behind the blown kiss. Her eyes held the camera with an expression she'd never practiced but somehow knew — half-shy, half-bold, the exact look that separated a woman dancing from a woman performing.
Kulkarni Kaka: ????
Kulkarni Kaka: My wife... my beautiful wife... I will fuck you so hard when I come back
She straightened. Pulled the pallu back over her shoulder. Walked to the desk chair and collapsed into it, breathing hard. Sweat glistened on her collarbones, in the hollow of her throat, on the strip of waist between blouse and saree.
"Enough?"
Her voice came out breathless. The dance had been maybe four minutes — five at most — but her heart pounded as though she'd climbed six flights of stairs.
She looked at the screen.
Kulkarni sat in his chair in Satara. His kurta was open wider now — three buttons, showing grey chest hair matted with sweat. His spectacles sat low on his nose. His mouth hung open slightly, lower lip wet.
And his right hand.
His right hand was below the frame. But his arm moved. A rhythmic, unmistakable motion — the shoulder dipping and rising, the forearm tensing with each stroke, the white kurta fabric shifting at his hip where his hand disappeared beneath it.
He was touching himself.
Devika stared. Her lips parted. Heat flooded her face — not the warm blush of arousal but the sharp burn of exposure. Of seeing something raw and private through a screen, something she wasn't supposed to witness but couldn't look away from.
His eyes were locked on her image. Those round spectacles reflecting her small figure on his screen — the green saree, the thin straps, the heaving chest, the strip of waist dark with sweat. His mouth moved soundlessly — forming words or her name, she couldn't tell.
She saw his arm move faster. The chair creaked under his shifting weight.
He's looking at me. Looking at me and doing that. I can see his eyes. He can see mine. We're watching each other.
Her hand gripped the armrest of the desk chair. Her thighs pressed together under the saree. The wet heat between them pulsed in time with his arm's rhythm — a synchronization neither of them had chosen.
I should look away. I should close the camera. I should—
She didn't look away.
His eyes burned into hers through two phone screens and four hundred kilometres of wire and signal and empty air. His arm moved. Her chest rose and fell. The sea-foam saree clung to her damp skin. The room smelled of jasmine and sweat.
Neither spoke.
The phone vibrated. She pressed red. Cut.
Twenty seconds later: Kulkarni Kaka calling...
Red. Cut.
Kulkarni Kaka: Two times you cut my call. My heart can't take more. Please Devika.
She held the phone. Bit her lower lip. The smile was permanent now—carved into her face, impossible to remove.
Kulkarni Kaka calling...
She let it ring. Three times. Four. Five.
Picked up.
Silence.
"Hello?" His voice. That familiar Marathi-accented Hindi. Soft. Careful. Like a man approaching a cat he'd accidentally scared.
She said nothing.
"Devika? Are you there?"
"Hmm." Cold. Flat.
"Thank God. I thought you'll never pick up." She heard him exhale—long, ragged, the breath of a man who'd been holding air in his lungs for five days. "Devika, I am really sorry. Truly. From my heart."
"Which heart? The one that sends one-line messages? 'Make your own chai, beta?' That heart?"
"I know, I know. It was wrong. I was surrounded by people. My cousin was crying every hour. I couldn't—"
"You couldn't type two extra sentences? 'I miss you, Devika. I am thinking of you.' That takes ten seconds. You couldn't find ten seconds in five days?"
A pause. She heard him swallow.
"You're right. There is no excuse. I was... I was also confused, Devika. About what happened between us. That night. After you left, I lay in that bed and your smell was everywhere—on the pillow, on the sheet, on my hands. And I kept thinking—this beautiful young girl, this educated woman, she chose me. Why? How? What does she want from a fat old man with glasses and grey hair?"
Her grip on the phone tightened.
"And then the funeral call came and I left. And on the bus to Satara, I thought—maybe this is good. Maybe distance will make her forget. Maybe she'll go back to her husband and her normal life and pretend it never happened. Because what can I give her? Really? What do I have?"
"You have—" She stopped. Pressed her lips together.
"I have what, Devika?"
"Nothing. You have nothing. You said it yourself."
"Don't be cruel, beta."
"I'm not being cruel. I'm being honest. You left me here alone with—" Her voice cracked. Thin hairline fracture running through the word. She covered it with a cough. "You showed me everything, kaka. That night. You showed me what my body could feel. What I was missing. And then you just... disappeared."
"I didn't disappear. I went for a funeral—"
"Same thing. Result is same. I was here. Alone. Every night. And my body was—" She closed her eyes. The words sat in her throat like hot stones. "I couldn't sleep. I couldn't eat properly. I tried to... by myself... and it didn't work. Nothing worked. You broke something in me and then left without fixing it."
Silence on the line. Ten seconds. Fifteen.
"Devika." His voice had changed. Dropped lower. That register she recognized—the one from the rainy night, from the bed, from the moment he'd entered her and whispered her name like a prayer. "When I was inside you... when I felt your body open for me... do you think I forgot that? Do you think I can forget how your back arched? How your fingers dug into my shoulders? How you said my name—not 'kaka,' not 'uncle'—my name. Kulkarni. You said it like nobody has said it in twenty years."
Her breath caught. Heat pooled in her stomach. Her thighs pressed together on the bed, nightgown riding up.
"Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Don't talk like that. I'm still angry with you."
"I know. Be angry. But let me tell you—every night in Satara, on that old cot with my cousin snoring next to me, I closed my eyes and I was back in my bed with you. Your weight on my chest. Your hair in my face. The sound you made when I—"
"Kaka—"
"—when I found that spot inside you. That little gasp. Like you were surprised your own body could do that. That sound, Devika—I will carry it in my ears till I die."
She pressed her palm against her sternum. Her heart hammered under it. Between her thighs, the familiar ache returned—sharp, specific, demanding.
"You can't just... say these things and make everything okay."
"I'm not trying to make everything okay. I'm telling you the truth. That's all."
A pause. She heard his breathing. He heard hers. Two people in different cities, connected by a phone signal and something darker.
"How is Arjun?"
The question landed like ice water on a burn.
"Why are you asking about Arjun?"
"Just asking. Is he home?"
"Night shift. Again. He left at eight-thirty."
"Good." The word came out before he could filter it. She heard the greed in it—raw, undisguised. "I mean—good that you can talk freely. Not good that—"
"I know what you meant."
Another pause. Then his voice shifted—softer, almost tender.
"Devika... you remember that first night? Not the rain night. Before that. When I came into your bedroom while Arjun was sleeping."
Her stomach dropped. "Don't—"
"When I sprayed that sleeping thing and he didn't wake up. And I leaned over you. And kissed you. Right there, next to your husband. Your lips were so soft... you were half asleep... and you kissed me back. You don't remember?"
"I remember." Barely a whisper.
"That was the first time I tasted you. With your husband six inches away. His hand was on your waist and my mouth was on your mouth. Do you know how that felt? Like stealing sugar from God's own kitchen."
Her eyes were closed now. Her free hand gripped the bedsheet.
"Give me one kiss, Devika."
"What?"
"Through the phone. One kiss. On my lips. Please."
"Kaka, that's—no. I'm not your wife. I'm not your—whatever. I'm not kissing the phone like some college girl."
"Just one. Small one. For this old man who hasn't slept properly in five days because he can't stop thinking about your mouth."
"No."
"Please."
"I said no."
"One kiss. And I'll let you go back to being angry."
A beat. Two.
She brought the phone close to her lips. Pressed them against the screen. Quick. Light. The faintest sound—barely a kiss, more like a breath with contact.
"There. Happy?"
"Devika..." His voice had gone rough. Scbangd raw. "That was not a kiss. That was a mosquito landing."
"That's all you're getting."
"One more. On my lips. Properly. The way you kissed me that night."
She pulled the phone back. Looked at the screen—his contact photo, those round spectacles, that thin grey mustache. The face of a man who'd been inside her.
She pressed her lips to the phone again. Slower this time. Longer. A real kiss—the kind that involved pressure and softness and the smallest parting of lips. She heard it through the speaker—a wet, intimate sound that filled the bedroom.
"Ohh..." His moan vibrated through the phone speaker and settled in her lower belly. "Devika... your lips... even through the phone I can feel them. So soft. So sweet. Like you put that lip gloss... that strawberry one..."
"It's not strawberry. It's cherry."
"Cherry..." He breathed the word like it was sacred. "Kiss me again. Please. One more."
She didn't argue this time. Brought the phone to her mouth. Kissed it—long, slow, pressing her lips hard against the glass screen. The sound was unmistakable now—wet, full, the unmistakable noise of a woman kissing deeply. Her tongue grazed the screen before she could stop herself and she tasted glass and dust and didn't care.
"Mmm..." She pulled back. Her lips glistened.
"Your sound..." Kulkarni's breathing was heavy now. Ragged. "That sound you made—mmm—say it again. Say my name with that sound."
"Kulkarni..." The word left her mouth wrapped in a moan she didn't plan. Low. From somewhere behind her navel. "Kulkarni, I missed you... I missed you so much, kaka... you don't know what these days were like..."
"Tell me."
"My body was on fire. Every night. Every morning. I couldn't—nothing was enough. My own hands weren't enough. I tried and tried and—" Her voice broke into something between a laugh and a sob. "You ruined me."
"I didn't ruin you, Devika. I woke you up. There's a difference."
"Same thing."
He kissed the phone. She heard it—his lips against the screen, that rough old mouth pressing hard, and the sound sent a shiver straight down her spine to the wet heat between her thighs.
"My turn," she whispered, and kissed back. Harder. A long, smooching kiss that filled the silence of the empty flat with sounds no wife should be making at nine in the morning. Her lips parted against the screen, creating suction, creating the obscene wet peel of mouth leaving glass that lasted three, four, five seconds.
"Devika... oh God... Devika..." His voice crumbled. She heard his breathing spike—short, sharp inhales through his nose. "The way you kiss... your mouth should be illegal... it should be registered as a weapon..."
She laughed. A real laugh—surprised, pleased, giddy with the absurd intimacy of kissing a phone screen while her husband's laptop charger still sat plugged into the wall.
"Your turn," she said. "Kiss me back."
He did. She heard the smack of his lips through the speaker—rougher than hers, less precise, but desperate. Hungry. The sound of a man drinking water after a long fast.
She kissed again. Longer. Moaning his name between each press of lips against glass. "Kulkarni... mmm... kaka... I missed this... missed your mouth..."
"I missed everything," he groaned. "Your mouth. Your neck. That spot behind your ear where you shiver when I—"
"Don't. You're making it worse."
"Worse how?"
"You know how."
He kissed the phone again. She responded. Back and forth—a volley of kisses through cellular signals, through satellite and tower and electromagnetic wave, each one wetter than the last, each one drawing longer moans from both throats. The bedroom filled with the sounds of their shared hunger—the smack and peel of lips, the ragged breathing, the whispered names that dissolved into groans.
"Devika," he said, voice steady now with something that wasn't tenderness. Something that was plan. Decision. "I want to see you."
"You can see my photo—"
"Video call. I want to see your face while you kiss me. I want to see your eyes."
Her stomach flipped. "Kaka, no. That's— I'll feel shy."
"Shy? After what we did on my bed? After what your body did under me? You're telling me shy?"
"That's different. In person is different. On camera I'll look—"
"Beautiful. You'll look beautiful. The way you look every single day that I've been watching you from my doorway and dying inside."
She pressed her palm against her burning cheek.
"Where are your relatives?"
"All left. I'm alone in the house. Door is locked."
She picked at the hem of her nightgown. The peach cotton sat high on her thighs, creased from sleep, thin from years of washing. Underneath she wore nothing—no bra, no underwear. She'd slept in just the nightgown.
"Okay."
She opened WhatsApp. Tapped his name. Tapped the video call icon.
The screen flickered. Connected.
His face filled her phone. Round spectacles reflecting light from a window behind him. Thin grey mustache. White kurta, top two buttons open, showing the edge of his collarbone and the beginning of grey chest hair. His eyes—magnified behind the lenses—locked onto her.
Her face appeared in the small corner box. Loose hair. Flushed cheeks. Lips swollen and glistening from kissing glass. The thin strap of her nightgown visible on one shoulder.
Neither spoke.
His mouth opened slightly. His tongue moved across his lower lip. Those eyes—small, round, ordinary behind their innocent spectacles—moved across her image with the slow deliberation of a man unwrapping a gift he'd waited decades to receive.
Devika's breath came shallow. She watched him watch her. Felt his gaze through the screen like heat through glass—filtered but not diminished. Her free hand gripped her own thigh under the frame.
"Devika..." His voice was a scbangd whisper. "You look..."
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. The gesture lifted the nightgown strap a fraction, showing the soft round of her shoulder.
His eyes followed the movement. His jaw tightened.
She looked at him—this old man in a borrowed house in Satara, grey and spectacled and desperate—and felt something she couldn't name move through her chest like warm water.
Want. Not just physical. Something deeper. Something worse.
Devika pressed her lips to the phone screen — slow, deliberate, her eyes half-closed. The glass warmed under her mouth. She held the kiss for three full seconds, her breath fogging the camera lens, and when she pulled back a thin string of saliva connected her lower lip to the screen before breaking.
Kulkarni watched her lips pull away — wet, glistening, parted. His groan came through the speaker raw and unfiltered. He brought his own phone to his mouth and kissed it hard — she heard the rough press of his stubbled lips, the desperate smack of a man trying to consume glass.
"Again," he whispered.
She kissed the screen. Softer this time. A brush. Then harder — pressing until her lips flattened against the surface, her tongue grazing the edge of the camera cutout. Saliva pooled at the corner of her mouth. She didn't wipe it.
"Your lips, Devika..." His voice had turned to gravel. "Wet like that... shining... I want to bite them. Just gently. Just enough to hear you—"
She kissed again. Cut him off mid-sentence with the sound of her mouth against glass. The wet peel when she pulled back filled the silence of the empty bedroom like a confession spoken too loud.
Her breathing was visible now — chest rising and falling, the thin peach nightgown moving with each inhale. Her lips glistened. A drop of saliva sat on her chin. She didn't notice it. Or didn't care.
Kulkarni's face on the screen had changed. The grandfatherly softness was gone. His jaw was set. His nostrils flared with each breath. Behind the round spectacles, his eyes burned with something that went beyond want — something territorial, possessive, the look of a man who'd tasted ownership and couldn't go back to visiting hours.
"Devika."
"Hmm?"
"I want to marry you."
The words landed in the bedroom like a stone thrown through a window. She blinked.
"What?"
"I want to marry you. Make you my wife. So I can love you without fear. Without hiding. Without checking if Arjun is asleep or if the door is locked or if someone is watching." His voice cracked at the edges. "I'm tired of stealing, Devika. I want to own."
She stared at his face on the screen. This sixty-seven-year-old man with his grey mustache and round spectacles and white kurta open at the collar — sitting in a dead cousin's house in Satara, asking a twenty-four-year-old married woman to be his wife.
The absurdity of it hit her like a wave. She laughed — not cruelly, but with genuine disbelief.
"Kaka, why you want to marry me? You're already getting more than my husband gets."
His face fell. The burning eyes dimmed. His mouth opened, closed, opened again. She saw the hurt move across his features like cloud shadow crossing a field.
"I'm serious, Devika. I'm not joking."
"I know you're serious. That's why it's funny." She wiped the saliva from her chin with the back of her hand. "Think about it, kaka. My husband comes home every night and gets nothing. Four minutes and snoring. You got my whole body for one night and I'm here kissing my phone screen for you at nine in the morning. What more you want?"
"Everything. I want everything."
"You already have everything. Marriage is just a piece of paper and a thali. What does it change?"
"It changes everything. It means you're mine. Not borrowed. Not stolen. Mine."
She went quiet. The word mine sat in the air between them — heavy, warm, dangerous.
"I can't marry another man, kaka. I'm already married. And even if I wasn't—" She shook her head. Her loose hair swayed against her shoulders. "What will people say? Twenty-four-year-old Kerala girl married to sixty-seven-year-old Maharashtrian uncle? My amma will have a heart attack before the muhurtham is fixed."
His face crumbled. Not dramatically — he wasn't a man given to theatrical sadness. But the light behind his spectacles dimmed. His shoulders dropped. He looked away from the camera, and she saw his jaw work, chewing on disappointment.
Devika watched him. This old man who'd held her through a rainy night. Who'd made her body sing in ways her husband never had. Who sat in a distant city missing her so badly he'd just proposed marriage through a WhatsApp video call.
Something softened inside her chest. Not pity — something warmer. Tenderness, maybe. Or the particular ache of watching someone want what they cannot have.
"Kaka."
He didn't look at the camera.
"Kaka, look at me."
He turned. His eyes were wet behind the spectacles. Not crying — too proud for that — but the moisture was there. Thin. Visible.
She smiled. That shy, dimpled smile that made his heart stop every time she deployed it — the one she didn't know was a weapon, the one that came from somewhere innocent even when her words weren't.
"Okay. When we are together — just us, talking like this, alone — I am your wife. And you are my husband. Happy?"
His face transformed. The dimness vanished. His eyes widened behind the spectacles, mouth parting under the grey mustache, and for one unguarded second he looked like a boy who'd been handed a gift he'd stopped believing in.
"Really? You mean it?"
"I mean it. When it's just us. On the phone, in your flat, wherever. I'm your wife. But in front of the world—"
"In front of the world, I'm Kulkarni kaka. Harmless old uncle."
"Exactly."
He kissed the phone. A loud, grateful smack that made her laugh.
Devika leaned back against the headboard, phone held in front of her face, and let the laughter fade into something quieter. Something like wonder.
What did I just say? I just told a sixty-seven-year-old Pune man he's my husband. Me — Devika Menon from Thrissur. Kerala Christian family, convent-educated, married in Guruvayoor temple with four hundred guests and a gold thali worth two lakhs around my neck. I just told a bald, spectacled, paan-chewing old uncle he can call me wife.
And I meant it.
The realization should have horrified her. It didn't. It settled into her chest like warm milk — strange, unexpected, comforting.
"Devika."
"Hmm?"
"Can I ask something?"
"You just asked me to marry you. What's left to ask?"
His smile turned different. That specific tilt of his mouth under the mustache — the one that meant his mind had slipped from sentiment to appetite.
"I want to see you in saree."
She looked down at her nightgown. Faded peach. Thin straps. Wrinkled from sleep and from the restless movements of the last hour.
"Kaka, I can't change into saree now. It takes time to dbang properly."
"I'll wait."
"It takes fifteen-twenty minutes—"
"I have nowhere to go. I'll wait."
She rolled her eyes. But the corners of her mouth twitched.
"Fine. Hold on."
She set the phone on the bed, screen facing up. He'd see the ceiling fan. The white paint. The slow rotation of three blades.
"I'm still here," his voice said from the speaker. "Waiting. Patiently. Like a good husband."
She laughed despite herself and walked to the steel almirah.
Fifteen minutes later, she picked up the phone.
"Ready?"
"Show me."
She turned the camera. Let it sweep across her body in the dressing table mirror before turning it back to face her.
The saree was sea-foam green — soft cotton with a thin gold border. She'd dbangd it the way Saradha had taught her: low on the waist, the pleats arranged neat and tight, the pallu thrown over her left shoulder and pinned loosely enough that it framed rather than hid. Underneath, a sleeveless blouse — black, with thin straps instead of the usual short sleeves. The straps sat on her shoulders like two dark lines drawn on cream paper, exposing the full round of her upper arms, the soft hollow of her armpits, the bare skin from collarbone to shoulder blade.
She'd put on light makeup. A thin line of kajal. A dab of lip gloss — the cherry one. A small black bindi. Jasmine tucked into her hastily arranged bun.
Kulkarni's breath caught audibly through the speaker.
"Devika..."
"What?"
"You look... aiyyo..." He shook his head. His spectacles fogged momentarily — he removed them, wiped them on his kurta, put them back. "That blouse. Those straps. Your shoulders. And the saree sitting so low on your waist — I can see your..."
"My what?" She angled the camera downward briefly, showing the strip of bare skin between blouse hem and saree waist — three inches of soft flesh, the gentle crease of her waist fold, the shadow of her navel half-hidden by the dbangd fabric.
"That." His voice dropped. "That right there. That kills me, Devika."
She pulled the camera back up to her face. Smiled.
Both went quiet. The silence stretched — not uncomfortable but charged, like the air before a thunderstorm. She looked at his face on the screen. He looked at hers. Neither knew what to say next. The proposal, the acceptance, the saree change — all of it had depleted some reserve of words, leaving only the raw current that hummed between them.
She kissed the screen. Quick. Wet. The smack broke the silence.
"Why you want to see me in saree only? I have churidar also. Nightgown you already saw."
"Because in saree..." He paused, searching for words. "In saree you are something else, Devika. Any girl can look good in jeans or churidar. But saree — the way it moves on your body, the way the pallu falls, the way your waist shows and hides and shows again when you walk — that is art. You in saree is like watching a river."
Her cheeks flushed. She tucked hair behind her ear.
"Kaka is becoming poet now?"
"Your body makes poets out of old men."
She kissed the screen again. Long. Pressed her smile against the glass.
"Devika..."
"Hmm?"
"Can you dance for me?"
Her smile froze. She pulled back from the screen.
"Dance?"
"Just... small dance. Gentle. The way you move when you're humming in the kitchen — I've watched you through the wall, Devika. When you cook and listen to songs on your phone, your hips move. Your shoulders move. You don't know you're doing it but you do it and it's..."
"Kaka, what is this? I'm not some webcam dancer on the internet."
"No, no — I'm not saying like that. Just a small dance. For your husband." He smiled. Used the word deliberately. Watched it land.
"No."
"Please."
"I said no. I don't even dance properly. What I'll look like, dancing alone in my bedroom for a phone camera?"
"Beautiful. You'll look beautiful."
"No."
"Devika, please. Just two minutes. Any song. Any steps. I just want to see you move. In that saree. With those straps on your shoulders. Please."
She pressed her lips together. Shook her head. But something shifted behind her eyes — a curiosity she didn't want to acknowledge.
This is exactly like those webcam sites. Old men paying money to watch girls dance and strip on camera. And here I am, being asked to do it for free.
But those girls are strangers. This is... different. This is the man who held me all night. The man who asked me to be his wife. My... husband.
God, I actually thought that word without flinching.
She set the phone on the dresser, propped against the mirror. Stepped back. Her full body appeared in the frame — sea-foam saree, black strap blouse, bare arms, jasmine in dark hair.
"Like this? Just standing here like an idiot?"
"Put some music. Anything."
She opened her phone's music app. Scrolled. Picked something soft — a Tamil melody, slow tempo, the kind that played during romantic scenes in films. The first notes filled the bedroom.
She stood in the center of the room. Arms at her sides. Feet together. She looked at the camera — at his face watching from Satara — and felt her body lock up. Every joint stiff. Every muscle aware of being watched.
She swayed. Left. Right. A wooden pendulum in a cotton saree. Her arms came up halfway, dropped back down. She took a step to the side, turned, took another step. The movements were hesitant — like a college girl performing at an annual day function, counting beats in her head, terrified of missing one.
"Kaka, please, I can't do this." She stopped. Walked toward the camera. "I feel so strange. I don't know how to dance on camera. It's different from—"
"Just once, Devika. Properly. Please. You know what my friends pay to see on those online sites? Two thousand, three thousand rupees for ten minutes of a random woman dancing. And here my own wife is standing in front of me in the most beautiful saree I've ever seen, and she won't even—"
"You watch those sites?" Her voice sharpened. "You pay money to watch women dance and strip online? And now you want me to do the same thing?"
His face reddened. "Not strip — I never said strip. Just dance. And I don't watch those sites regularly, just sometimes when—"
"Sometimes when you're lonely and dirty and thinking about young women with your old—"
"Devika—"
"What kind of fantasy is this, kaka? You want me to be your webcam girl?"
"Not webcam girl. My wife. Dancing for her husband. Is that wrong?"
She stared at him through the screen. His round spectacled face. The grey mustache. The pleading eyes that managed to look both innocent and filthy simultaneously — a talent unique to men who'd spent decades perfecting the art of wanting without showing.
"Please, Devika. Just once. After this I won't ask again."
"You always say that. 'Just once.' 'After this I won't ask.' And then you ask again."
"This time I mean it."
"You always mean it."
"Please."
Webcam dancer. That's what I'll be. A twenty-four-year-old married woman dancing for a sixty-seven-year-old man's camera in her husband's bedroom while he's at office.
But... the idea of it. Dancing for someone who's watching. Someone who wants me. Someone whose eyes will track every movement of my hips, every sway of the pallu, every flash of bare waist. Someone who's getting hard watching me.
When did I start wanting to be watched?
"Okay."
She stepped back to the center of the room. Restarted the music. A different song this time — something slower, heavier, with a bass line that pulsed like a heartbeat.
She closed her eyes. Let the music enter through her feet. The first sway came from her hips — not the wooden pendulum of before but something liquid, something that lived in the joint between pelvis and spine. Her arms rose. Fingers extended. Wrists turned in slow circles.
She danced.
Not choreography. Not film steps or classical mudras. Just her body moving the way it wanted to move — the natural rhythm she carried in her bones, the Kerala girl's unconscious grace amplified by awareness, by the knowledge that a man was watching every inch of her with hunger dripping from his eyes.
Her hips drew circles. The saree fabric moved with them — the pleats separating and closing like a fan, the pallu sliding an inch down her shoulder before she caught it, held it, let it slip again. The sea-foam green caught the morning light from the window and glowed against her skin.
A message pinged on the video call chat.
Kulkarni Kaka: More seducing. Slow. Move your waist more.
She glanced at the screen. Her jaw set. Mock anger crossed her face — that specific expression of a woman who's annoyed but not enough to stop.
She rolled her eyes. Then turned back to the music and let her body respond to his demand.
Her waist moved. Slower now. Deliberate. The fold of flesh above her petticoat waistband creased and smoothed with each rotation. Her hands found her own hips — palms flat, fingers spread, framing the strip of bare skin that the low-dbangd saree exposed. She traced the saree's edge with her fingertip, following the fabric line from hip to navel and back.
Kulkarni Kaka: ????
Kulkarni Kaka: You are killing me
Kulkarni Kaka: ??
She saw the emojis appear in the chat box at the bottom of the screen. Kissing face. Fire. Devil. She bit her lower lip and a smile escaped — small, secret, pleased.
She continued. Her arms rose above her head, fingers interlocking, and the movement pulled her blouse upward, exposing the full landscape of her bare waist — the smooth expanse from rib cage to saree waist, the gentle curve of her sides, the twin hollows of her armpits visible beneath the thin straps.
Kulkarni Kaka: Your armpits... so smooth... I want to kiss there
Kulkarni Kaka: ???
She held the pose. Arms up. Armpits exposed. Swayed her hips in that position — her body becoming a slow, hypnotic pendulum of flesh and fabric. The jasmine in her hair loosened, petals drifting down her shoulder.
Then she turned. Back facing the camera.
Her spine was a straight line from neck to tailbone, the black blouse straps crossing bare shoulder blades that moved beneath skin like wings folded under silk. The saree bunched at her lower back, tucked tight into the petticoat waist, and below it — the full, heavy curve of her hips swayed in slow, deliberate arcs. Left. Right. Left. The sea-foam fabric clung to the shape of her buttocks, following every movement, revealing every contour.
Kulkarni Kaka: Your ass in that saree... I am going mad... turn around again slowly
Kulkarni Kaka: ????
Kulkarni Kaka: I want to grab and squeeze
She read the messages over her shoulder. Her face flushed — a deep pink that spread from her cheeks to the tips of her ears. She turned back to face the camera.
The music swelled. She bent forward — slowly, her back curving, hair falling around her face. The pallu dropped. The blouse neckline gaped. She looked straight into the camera through the curtain of her hair and blew a kiss.
Then another. Wet. Her lips parted, tongue visible for a fraction of a second behind the blown kiss. Her eyes held the camera with an expression she'd never practiced but somehow knew — half-shy, half-bold, the exact look that separated a woman dancing from a woman performing.
Kulkarni Kaka: ????
Kulkarni Kaka: My wife... my beautiful wife... I will fuck you so hard when I come back
She straightened. Pulled the pallu back over her shoulder. Walked to the desk chair and collapsed into it, breathing hard. Sweat glistened on her collarbones, in the hollow of her throat, on the strip of waist between blouse and saree.
"Enough?"
Her voice came out breathless. The dance had been maybe four minutes — five at most — but her heart pounded as though she'd climbed six flights of stairs.
She looked at the screen.
Kulkarni sat in his chair in Satara. His kurta was open wider now — three buttons, showing grey chest hair matted with sweat. His spectacles sat low on his nose. His mouth hung open slightly, lower lip wet.
And his right hand.
His right hand was below the frame. But his arm moved. A rhythmic, unmistakable motion — the shoulder dipping and rising, the forearm tensing with each stroke, the white kurta fabric shifting at his hip where his hand disappeared beneath it.
He was touching himself.
Devika stared. Her lips parted. Heat flooded her face — not the warm blush of arousal but the sharp burn of exposure. Of seeing something raw and private through a screen, something she wasn't supposed to witness but couldn't look away from.
His eyes were locked on her image. Those round spectacles reflecting her small figure on his screen — the green saree, the thin straps, the heaving chest, the strip of waist dark with sweat. His mouth moved soundlessly — forming words or her name, she couldn't tell.
She saw his arm move faster. The chair creaked under his shifting weight.
He's looking at me. Looking at me and doing that. I can see his eyes. He can see mine. We're watching each other.
Her hand gripped the armrest of the desk chair. Her thighs pressed together under the saree. The wet heat between them pulsed in time with his arm's rhythm — a synchronization neither of them had chosen.
I should look away. I should close the camera. I should—
She didn't look away.
His eyes burned into hers through two phone screens and four hundred kilometres of wire and signal and empty air. His arm moved. Her chest rose and fell. The sea-foam saree clung to her damp skin. The room smelled of jasmine and sweat.
Neither spoke.
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