Adultery The Aarogya Wellness and Intimacy Clinic

[prasannas2001]

 

 
 
Naveen lay there, his mind churning.
 
What had just happened?
What did it mean?
Was it him?
 
Was it something she hadn't told him?
 
Had he done something wrong, moved too fast, expected too much?
 
He replayed the evening in his head, searching for the moment it had gone wrong.
 
The kiss.
 
The hug.
 
The way she had let him undress her, slowly, piece by piece.
 
The way she had stood there, bare and beautiful, letting him look.
 
She had wanted it.
 
He was sure she had wanted it.
 
And then,
 
Nothing.
 
Terror.
 
A wall he hadn't seen coming.
 
He didn't know what to do.
 
He didn't know how to fix it.
 
He only knew that his wife was a foot away from him, and she was crying, he could hear it now, the soft, suppressed sound of it, the way she was trying to hide it from him, and he couldn't reach her.
 
He wanted to reach for her.
 
He wanted to pull her close and hold her and tell her that everything was going to be okay.
 
But he was afraid.
 
Afraid that if he touched her, she would flinch.
 
Afraid that if he spoke, she would stop crying and pretend to be fine, and he would lose the only window he had into what she was feeling.
 
So he did nothing.
 
He lay there, listening to her cry, and felt his own heart break a little.
 
And eventually, without meaning to, without wanting to, he fell asleep.
 
Seema waited.
 
She waited until his breathing went deep and even, until the small sounds of the city outside faded into a background hum, until the only thing in the world was the dark and the weight of her own shame pressing down on her chest.
 
Then she cried.
 
She cried without sound, the way she had learned to cry as a child, mouth open, face contorted, but no noise.
 
No noise at all.
 
Because noise brought attention, and attention brought questions, and questions brought nothing but pain.
 
She had ruined it.
 
She had ruined the one good thing she had ever had.
 
Naveen was good.
 
Naveen was kind.
 
Naveen was everything she had hoped for and more, and she had seen it in his eyes when he stepped back and held up his hands and told her that nothing was going to happen that she didn't want.