02-10-2026, 08:14 PM
I bent over the cot and I kissed my husband’s forehead before I left, my lips on him, my perfume already on my neck, the pink chiffon saree hanging forward as I leaned, my heavy breasts in the pink blouse and the white bra close to his sleeping face. He did not wake. I stood back, looked at him once more, and I went down the stairs from the first floor to the ground floor.
When I came out onto the road Santosh was already there in front of Mary Sweets, and he laughed at me as well. He laughed looking at the closed shutter of Sudha Sweet Stall and then looking at me in the pink saree, the same laugh he had used on my husband in front of the customers and the workers, and the sound hit me on the pavement and made me so angry that I looked at him and wanted him dead at any cost. I told myself that this should be his last laugh. I did not speak to him. I stood in front of our closed shop and I looked at it, the shutter down, the name still painted above, the ground floor empty, the basement empty, no trays, no workers, no morning crowd, and I felt what I had said in the middle of the night, that we would have to build from the scrap if I did not do something. I wanted the shop open like before. I wanted the road turning to us. I wanted my husband number one again. The emptiness of the stall sat in my chest beside that anger, the grey panties against my shaved pussy under the pink petticoat, the gold anklets sounding when I turned away from Santosh and from our shutter, the want for him gone from the road sitting in me with the want to save the stall.
I raised my hand and I took an auto.
“That side, I will tell you the place, go,” I said, sitting in the back, the pink saree around my hips and my ass, the perfume in the small space of the auto.
“Tell me when to stop,” the auto driver said, and the auto pulled into the road, away from Mary Sweets, away from the closed stall, toward Ranga’s area, toward the gated house I had seen on the phone in the dark, my hands in my lap, my face forward, Santosh’s laugh still in my ears and already marked as the last one I was going to take.
The auto stopped in the area I had seen on the phone and I got down in the pink chiffon saree, the grey panties against my shaved pussy, the white bra holding my breasts under the pink blouse, the perfume still on my neck, the gold anklets sounding on the road. Ganesh Chaturthi flex banners were everywhere. Every wall and every pole held a wide banner with Ganesh in the centre and Ranga’s big photo on the side, that same ugly scary face from the videos, and around the big photo the tiny photos of his men sat in rows, small heads, small names, the whole area wishing Chaturthi with his face printed larger than anyone else’s.
I took out my phone and I opened the same videos I had watched in the middle of the night and I looked from the screen to the banners and back, matching the hard uneven face, the deep eyes, the dark look, the shoulders, until I was sure this was the place. I asked a man standing near one of the banners.
“Ranga, where is he, I came to see him, the videos show this area,” I said, holding the phone so he could see I was not lost.
“He is sitting in the corner inside, that auto, go there, he is there now,” the man said, pointing past the banners toward a corner where an auto stood.
I put the phone away and I began walking toward that auto, the pink saree moving over my hips and over my ass, the pink petticoat low below my navel under it, my heavy breasts forward in the pink blouse, my mouth slightly open, my large eyes on the corner, Santosh’s laugh still in me, the closed stall still in me, and the ugly scary man from the screen waiting in that auto in the corner of his own area.
I walked toward the auto in the corner, the pink chiffon saree moving over my hips and over my ass with every step, the gold anklets sounding, the Ganesh banners with Ranga’s big face hanging over the street behind me. Inside the auto the auto driver was sitting in the driver’s seat. Ranga was sitting in the back seat, the same ugly guy from the videos, darker in the real light than on the phone, his face hard and uneven, his eyes deep, his lips thick, his shoulders filling the back of the auto, scary even while he was only sitting.
The moment I saw him I began introducing myself.
“I am Sudha, I came from the other side of the city, I saw your videos last night, I found this area from those videos, I need to talk to you, I need your help,” I said, standing beside the auto, my hands on the door, my breasts forward in the pink blouse, my mouth dry.
The auto driver turned in the driver’s seat and began looking at me, his eyes going over my face and then down over the pink blouse and over my hips and over the saree on my ass, and he did not look away. Ranga looked at me from the back seat the same way, slower, from my large eyes to my full lips to my breasts to the pallu at my waist.
“Sit inside, sit next to me, tell me about you, tell me what you want, do not stand on the road and talk, come,” Ranga said, moving a little on the back seat to make space.
I got inside the auto and I sat next to him on the back seat, the pink saree gathering around my thighs and my ass, my grey panties against my shaved pussy, my shoulder close to his shoulder, the ugly scary face I had wondered about in the night now beside me, the auto driver still looking at me from the front, and I drew one breath and got ready to tell him who I was and what I had come for.
“Start the auto, keep moving, do not stop until I say, go around,” Ranga said, and the auto driver started the auto and pulled out of the corner and kept moving through the area, the Ganesh banners sliding past the open sides, Ranga’s own face on the flex going by while the real Ranga sat next to me on the back seat.
He put his left hand around my shoulder and kept it there, heavy on the pink blouse, his fingers near my neck and near the mangalsutra, and he listened like that. His eyes were all over me, ogling, going from my large eyes to my full lips to my neck to my heavy breasts inside the pink blouse and the white bra, then down to my waist and to my hips and to my thighs under the pink saree, then back to my breasts again, not hiding it. The wind from the moving auto lifted my pallu and made it flow off my chest and off my shoulder, and each time the pallu flew the pink blouse showed the full shape of my breasts, the nipples pressing from inside the white bra, and I felt his eyes catch that and stay. I had come for Santosh. I had come because I wanted him dead at any cost. And still, with that ugly scary face beside me and that left hand on my shoulder and the pallu flying, lust moved in me against my will, my shaved pussy warming against the grey panties, my nipples tightening, my breath changing while I talked.
“Now say, who are you, what happened, what do you want from me, tell me everything, do not cut,” Ranga said, his thick lips close, his dark body filling the seat, his left hand pulling my shoulder a little toward him so my breast almost touched his chest.
I began saying it. I told him I was Sudha, a housewife, that my husband had built Sudha Sweet Stall and put my name on the shutter, that the stall had been number one, that we had a house of four floors over the ground floor and the basement, that five workers had made the sweets below while my husband sold them on the road. I told him Mary Sweets opened opposite, that Santosh spread rumours through every contact that our sweets were low quality, that the regulars stopped coming, that offers and extra samples did nothing. I told him Santosh laughed at my husband in front of customers and workers, that my husband came home silent and could not sleep, that our three sons saw their father humiliated, that the next day my husband settled the balance and sent the five workers off because he could not maintain them. I told him the basement went empty, the shutter went down, and this morning Santosh laughed at me also when I came out in this saree, the same laugh, and that laugh had made me so angry I wanted him gone from the road at any cost. While I said all of it the wind kept making my pallu flow, my breasts kept moving in the pink blouse, his eyes kept ogling, his left hand kept holding my shoulder, and the lust sat in me beside the anger, unwanted and already there.
“He humiliated my husband in front of everyone, he laughed at me today in front of our closed shop, he took the road with rumours, five men are gone, my husband cried on me in the night and he could not even make love, I came here from those videos, I want your help to kill Santosh, I want that laugh finished, I want my stall back, that is why I sat next to you,” I said, my hands tight in my lap, my breasts rising under the pink blouse, my grey panties wet against my shaved pussy as the auto kept moving, the auto driver listening from the front and looking at me in the mirror, Ranga’s ugly face close to mine and not yet answering.
Ranga took his left hand off my shoulder slowly, his fingers dragging across the pink blouse at my back, and he placed that hand on my lap. The heat of his palm came through the pink saree onto my thigh and stayed there, heavy, not moving at first, only holding my thigh as the auto shook over the road and the Ganesh banners kept sliding past. Then he grabbed my waist gently with the same hand, sliding up from my lap to the side of my waist, his fingers on the pink blouse, his thumb near the line where the blouse met the saree, holding me on the seat so I could not lean away. His eyes stayed on my face for one second and then they went down, ogling my heavy breasts inside the pink blouse and the white bra, ogling the nipples that the wind and his hand had already made tight, ogling the pallu each time it lifted and showed more of the blouse. The auto driver kept the auto moving and kept looking in the mirror. I sat with my grey panties wet against my shaved pussy and I felt the tension in my stomach and in my clit at the same time, anger for Santosh and lust for this ugly scary man sitting in one body, and I waited for him to speak.
“Why should I do that for you, you sat here and told me a long story, Santosh is not my problem, your stall is not my stall, what will you give me if I take this on, say it clearly,” Ranga said, his ugly face close, his thick lips almost at my ear, his breath on my neck, his hand tightening a little on my waist so my breast shifted toward his chest.
I swallowed. The wind lifted the pallu again and the pink blouse showed the full shape of my breasts and I knew he saw it. I thought of money because money was the only clean thing I could offer in an auto next to a man like this.
“I will give money, I can arrange money, tell me how much, I did not come empty, my husband built that stall, I will pay, I only want Santosh finished, I only want the laugh finished,” I said, my thighs tight under the saree, my grey panties stuck to my shaved pussy, my voice trying to stay even while his thumb moved once on my waist.
“I do not want money, money I have, you can keep your notes, that is not the price, do not talk money to me,” Ranga said, and he moved his hand from my waist back down to my lap and left it there, covering more of my thigh, the pink saree trapped under his palm, his eyes going slowly over my breasts again as if the answer was already sitting on my body and I was only late to say it.
The auto turned a corner. My gold anklets sounded. My ass slid an inch on the seat toward him. I looked at his thick lips and I remembered wondering in the night how a woman would kiss those lips and how ugly he would look naked, and the thought did not go away. I had to ask. The tension in my pussy and in my chest would not let me sit silent.
“Then what do you want, tell me, I came this far, I sat next to you, I told you everything, what do you want from me,” I said, my full lips open, my heavy breasts rising against the pink blouse, the mangalsutra shifting on my chest, my hand gripping the seat so I would not shake.
“I want you, that is the price, you, this body, you let me fuck you, if you agree I can kill Santosh tomorrow itself, no waiting, tomorrow he is gone, that is what I want, say yes or get down,” Ranga said, his fingers pressing my thigh through the pink saree, pressing close enough that I felt it in my clit, his dark ugly face waiting, his eyes on my nipples where they pressed the pink blouse, the auto still moving, the driver still listening, no place to stand up and no place to hide.
Santosh’s death was sweet to me. For a long second I sat with that sweetness and with his hand on my lap and with the pallu flying and with my grey panties wet, and killing Santosh began to appear more happiness to me than myself, more than my own body, more than the lust, more than the fear of giving this man what he was asking. I saw the closed shutter. I saw my husband crying on my neck in the dark. I saw the three sons watching him silent at the dining table. I saw Santosh laughing at me on the pavement in this same pink saree. The tension broke into the only answer that would take me back to a stall that opened, and I put the condition in before the yes could go without it.
“I will agree, I will let you fuck me after you kill Santosh and after you close his shop, not before, you do that first, then I will give you me, you agree to that and I am yours after,” I said, my hand still on the seat, my ass on the moving auto, my breasts against the wind, the pink pallu flying across his arm.
“I agree, Santosh first, his shop closed, then you, tomorrow I start, you go home and wait, when it is done I will call you to my house,” Ranga said, his palm still on my thigh, his ugly face close, and the deal sat between us in the moving auto while the road kept taking us around and around his area.
“Tell him your address, he will drop you home, say the road, say the stall,” Ranga said, his hand still leaving heat on my thigh even after he lifted it, his ugly face close in the moving auto.
“No, do not come to my house, drop me at the nearest auto stand, I will go from there, my husband is on the first floor, my sons are in the house, I cannot get down with you in front of our shutter,” I said, my pallu still restless from the wind, my grey panties still wet, fear coming back now that the deal was spoken.
“I have to look at Santosh and I have to look at his shop, I have to analyse the road, the shutter, who stands where, you will show me, that is part of this, you agreed, we go there, you show, then you go up,” Ranga said, and the auto driver waited with his hands on the wheel.
I sat with that for a second, the closed stall in my head, Santosh’s laugh in my head, and I agreed.
“All right, go to our road, I will show you from a distance, do not stop in front of Mary Sweets, do not stop in front of our shutter,” I said.
The auto reached our house. The driver parked at a distance, far enough that the two shutters sat down the road, Sudha Sweet Stall closed on one side, Mary Sweets open on the other. All of us got out. I stood in the pink chiffon saree on our own road again, the gold anklets sounding, and I lifted my chin and showed them.
“That one far side is Santosh, Mary Sweets, that shutter, he stands there and laughs, this one is ours, Sudha Sweet Stall, closed, the basement is under this, empty now,” I said, keeping my voice low.
Ranga and the auto driver walked around and casually scanned, looking at the road, at the opposite shutter, at our closed shutter, at the windows of the first floor, at the lane beside the house, not stopping long in one place, two men who could have been anyone passing. I walked away from them and I stood at my basement, at the door of the empty steps, the same door I used to go through every morning at 10 AM in a low saree when the five workers were still there. After they finished scanning they came toward me at the basement. I looked once at the road and at the first-floor windows and I went inside the empty basement so that no one would see the three of us standing together. They both followed inside. The air was still thick with old sugar and old ghee, the vessels sitting without fire, the heat leftover, and I stood in the pink saree between the silent stoves with Ranga and the auto driver coming down the steps after me, the deal already made, Santosh’s shop still open above us on the other side of the road.
Ranga stood close to me between the silent vessels in the empty basement and he asked for an advance.
“You agreed, I start tomorrow, I take an advance now, here, before I go,” Ranga said, his ugly face over mine, the auto driver standing near the steps and watching.
“How much money, tell me the amount, I can bring it, do not do this here, my husband is upstairs,” I said, my back near a cold stove, my heavy breasts rising in the pink blouse.
“Not money, a kiss, that is the advance, mouth on mouth, now, then I go and I look after the other side,” Ranga said, already putting his hands on my waist.
I reluctantly agreed. He put his filthy mouth on my lips. His mouth tasted of old smoke and spit, his thick lips wet, his tongue pushing into my mouth at once, filling my lips, licking my teeth, leaving his spit on my tongue and on the corners of my mouth, and he kissed me like that, messy, filthy, his nose against my face, his dark body pressing my breasts through the pink blouse and the white bra. I held the pink saree at my hip and I took that kiss because of tomorrow. In the middle of it he turned his head just enough to look at the auto driver and he spoke against my mouth.
“Yummy, you see this, yummy, rare like this does not walk into an auto every day,” Ranga said, and then he put his filthy mouth back on my lips and continued kissing me, panting between the kisses, looking at the driver again, his hands on my ass over the saree.
“Rare babe, look at these lips, look at these breasts, she will be great in bed, tomorrow after the job I will take all of this, you stay and watch the road,” Ranga said, and he kissed me again, spit on my chin, his tongue in my mouth, my grey panties wet, my clit tight, my full lips trapped under his thick lips.
“Stop, my husband will come down, the boys are in the house, this is the basement, he will hear, please, the kiss is enough, leave,” I said, breaking the kiss, turning my face, my mouth wet with him, my breath coming fast.
“Not just a kiss, I want your panties, the ones you are wearing now, that is also the advance, give,” Ranga said, holding my waist, his ugly face shining.
“No, I cannot give my panties, I have to go upstairs, I am wearing the saree, no,” I said, shaking my head, my hands on his chest.
He stood in front of the steps and he made it plain he would not leave without my panties. The auto driver did not move. The empty basement held the three of us and the leftover smell of sugar.
“I am not going, lift the saree, take them off, put them in my hand,” Ranga said.
I began lifting my pink saree along with my pink petticoat, the pink saree and the pink petticoat coming up over my thighs and over my hips, my shaved pussy showing in the grey panties, my ass showing, and I put my thumbs in the grey panties and I started removing them, pulling them down over my ass and over my pussy. By the time I was removing them he held my face with both hands and kissed my lips nicely, cheekily, a smaller kiss after the filthy one, almost a thank you on my mouth, and he collected my grey panties from my ankles with one hand. Then he and the auto driver left the basement and went up the steps and out toward the auto parked at a distance, and I stood in the empty basement with the pink saree and the pink petticoat falling back down, no panties on my shaved pussy, his spit still on my lips, the advance already gone with him.
I went back up from the empty basement to the first floor at 8 AM in the pink chiffon saree, no panties on my shaved pussy, the pink petticoat and the saree falling over my ass and my thighs, Ranga’s spit still on my lips, and I walked into the hall as if I had only come from the temple. My husband was awake. The three sons were coming down from the second and third and fourth floors. I went to the kitchen and I prepared breakfast, idli and chutney, the same breakfast I made when the stall was number one, my hands working the batter and the chutney while my grey panties were gone in another man’s pocket and my mouth still held his filthy taste. I served them at the dining table, idli on the plates, chutney in the bowl, coffee for my husband, and I sat with them and I settled down, the mangalsutra on my chest, the gold bangles on my wrists, the perfume from the morning still under the smell of the chutney.
“Temple was crowded, I came back, eat, the idli is hot, I will sit,” I said, keeping my voice ordinary, my thighs closed under the pink saree so no one would know I had no panties.
I went to the bathroom after they started eating and I brushed my teeth again, the brush hard on my tongue, paste filling my mouth, water again and again, trying to take his taste out. His taste was still in my mouth. The smoke and the spit and the filthy kiss sat under the paste, on my tongue, on the inside of my lips, and I stood at the basin with my heavy breasts in the pink blouse and I could not brush it away. I came back to the dining table and I sat with my family and I ate a little idli, and even the chutney could not cover what he had left in my mouth, the house settling into an ordinary morning while the advance was already done below us in the basement and tomorrow was already promised.
The whole day we were sad. The shutter of Sudha Sweet Stall stayed down. My husband sat on the first floor and did not go to the counter. The three sons moved quietly between their floors. I served lunch and I served coffee and I kept the pink saree on and I kept my face the same, and under the pink petticoat I still had no panties, and under my ordinary talk I waited.
At night I took off the pink chiffon saree and the pink blouse and the pink petticoat and the white bra and I put on my nighty, the nighty falling over my breasts and over my waist and over my hips, my shaved pussy bare under it, and I went to the balcony. Mary Sweets caught fire. I watched from the balcony in my nighty, the road lit by the flames, the opposite shutter already eating itself, smoke going up past our four floors, people starting to shout on the pavement. I stood with my hands on the balcony and I felt my goal arriving in front of my eyes. The laugh was burning. The rumours were burning. The shop that had taken our road was burning. I was delighted and I was full and I was shaking from it, and I did not let that come onto my face. My husband came behind me and he took out his phone to call the fire engine.
“I am calling them now, it will jump to our side, look at that, I am calling,” my husband said, already unlocking the phone.
“Stop, wait, do not call yet, let them come on their own, our shutter is down, it will not jump, put the phone down,” I said, and I put my hand on his wrist and I made him stop.
We stood on the balcony and we watched. I watched the fire take the inside of that shop and I was sure he was suffering. I was sure the heat reached him before he could get out. I was sure he screamed on the same road where he had laughed at my husband and laughed at me. I was sure he felt it for a long time, trapped behind his own shutter, breathing the smoke, burning while the shop he used against us became the thing that killed him. That certainty made me so happy I had to press my lips together. I thought of the name on our shutter. I thought of my husband number one again. I thought of the basement filling with workers and trays. I thought of the three sons seeing their father smile at the dining table. My goal was there in the flames and it was emotional in my chest like a prayer that had been answered in the ugliest way, and I held the balcony so I would not show any of it. I watched until everything on that side was burnt down, the shop, the trays, the name on the shutter, the place where he had stood in the morning. Only after that I myself called the fire engine.
When they came they broke what was left of the shutter. Santosh’s dead body was inside and it was as gruesome as a body can be after fire. He was charred black from head to foot, the face gone, the mouth open in a cooked scream, the lips burnt away, the eyes empty holes, the nose flattened, the hair gone, the hands drawn up and stiff and cracked, the fingers like burnt sticks, the stomach split and ruined, the legs thin and black and broken at the knees, the whole body stuck to what was left of the floor, stiff, wet in places from the water they threw, smelling so strong the people on the road covered their mouths and still stared. No one could have said it was a man except that it was lying where a man had been. Looking at that body I was sure he had suffered. A death that left a man like that was not a fast death. I felt so happy I had to hold the balcony with both hands so my face would not show it. I kept my mouth still. I kept my eyes only as wide as a neighbour’s eyes should be. Inside I was glad he had suffered. Inside I was glad the body looked like that. Inside I knew I had done what I came down the stairs that morning to do. My husband looked down and he did not know that this was the job I had paid for with a filthy kiss and with my grey panties in the empty basement, and I stood beside him in my nighty with my goal achieved on the other side of the road, and I let the night take the other shop off our street so ours could live again.
When I came out onto the road Santosh was already there in front of Mary Sweets, and he laughed at me as well. He laughed looking at the closed shutter of Sudha Sweet Stall and then looking at me in the pink saree, the same laugh he had used on my husband in front of the customers and the workers, and the sound hit me on the pavement and made me so angry that I looked at him and wanted him dead at any cost. I told myself that this should be his last laugh. I did not speak to him. I stood in front of our closed shop and I looked at it, the shutter down, the name still painted above, the ground floor empty, the basement empty, no trays, no workers, no morning crowd, and I felt what I had said in the middle of the night, that we would have to build from the scrap if I did not do something. I wanted the shop open like before. I wanted the road turning to us. I wanted my husband number one again. The emptiness of the stall sat in my chest beside that anger, the grey panties against my shaved pussy under the pink petticoat, the gold anklets sounding when I turned away from Santosh and from our shutter, the want for him gone from the road sitting in me with the want to save the stall.
I raised my hand and I took an auto.
“That side, I will tell you the place, go,” I said, sitting in the back, the pink saree around my hips and my ass, the perfume in the small space of the auto.
“Tell me when to stop,” the auto driver said, and the auto pulled into the road, away from Mary Sweets, away from the closed stall, toward Ranga’s area, toward the gated house I had seen on the phone in the dark, my hands in my lap, my face forward, Santosh’s laugh still in my ears and already marked as the last one I was going to take.
The auto stopped in the area I had seen on the phone and I got down in the pink chiffon saree, the grey panties against my shaved pussy, the white bra holding my breasts under the pink blouse, the perfume still on my neck, the gold anklets sounding on the road. Ganesh Chaturthi flex banners were everywhere. Every wall and every pole held a wide banner with Ganesh in the centre and Ranga’s big photo on the side, that same ugly scary face from the videos, and around the big photo the tiny photos of his men sat in rows, small heads, small names, the whole area wishing Chaturthi with his face printed larger than anyone else’s.
I took out my phone and I opened the same videos I had watched in the middle of the night and I looked from the screen to the banners and back, matching the hard uneven face, the deep eyes, the dark look, the shoulders, until I was sure this was the place. I asked a man standing near one of the banners.
“Ranga, where is he, I came to see him, the videos show this area,” I said, holding the phone so he could see I was not lost.
“He is sitting in the corner inside, that auto, go there, he is there now,” the man said, pointing past the banners toward a corner where an auto stood.
I put the phone away and I began walking toward that auto, the pink saree moving over my hips and over my ass, the pink petticoat low below my navel under it, my heavy breasts forward in the pink blouse, my mouth slightly open, my large eyes on the corner, Santosh’s laugh still in me, the closed stall still in me, and the ugly scary man from the screen waiting in that auto in the corner of his own area.
I walked toward the auto in the corner, the pink chiffon saree moving over my hips and over my ass with every step, the gold anklets sounding, the Ganesh banners with Ranga’s big face hanging over the street behind me. Inside the auto the auto driver was sitting in the driver’s seat. Ranga was sitting in the back seat, the same ugly guy from the videos, darker in the real light than on the phone, his face hard and uneven, his eyes deep, his lips thick, his shoulders filling the back of the auto, scary even while he was only sitting.
The moment I saw him I began introducing myself.
“I am Sudha, I came from the other side of the city, I saw your videos last night, I found this area from those videos, I need to talk to you, I need your help,” I said, standing beside the auto, my hands on the door, my breasts forward in the pink blouse, my mouth dry.
The auto driver turned in the driver’s seat and began looking at me, his eyes going over my face and then down over the pink blouse and over my hips and over the saree on my ass, and he did not look away. Ranga looked at me from the back seat the same way, slower, from my large eyes to my full lips to my breasts to the pallu at my waist.
“Sit inside, sit next to me, tell me about you, tell me what you want, do not stand on the road and talk, come,” Ranga said, moving a little on the back seat to make space.
I got inside the auto and I sat next to him on the back seat, the pink saree gathering around my thighs and my ass, my grey panties against my shaved pussy, my shoulder close to his shoulder, the ugly scary face I had wondered about in the night now beside me, the auto driver still looking at me from the front, and I drew one breath and got ready to tell him who I was and what I had come for.
“Start the auto, keep moving, do not stop until I say, go around,” Ranga said, and the auto driver started the auto and pulled out of the corner and kept moving through the area, the Ganesh banners sliding past the open sides, Ranga’s own face on the flex going by while the real Ranga sat next to me on the back seat.
He put his left hand around my shoulder and kept it there, heavy on the pink blouse, his fingers near my neck and near the mangalsutra, and he listened like that. His eyes were all over me, ogling, going from my large eyes to my full lips to my neck to my heavy breasts inside the pink blouse and the white bra, then down to my waist and to my hips and to my thighs under the pink saree, then back to my breasts again, not hiding it. The wind from the moving auto lifted my pallu and made it flow off my chest and off my shoulder, and each time the pallu flew the pink blouse showed the full shape of my breasts, the nipples pressing from inside the white bra, and I felt his eyes catch that and stay. I had come for Santosh. I had come because I wanted him dead at any cost. And still, with that ugly scary face beside me and that left hand on my shoulder and the pallu flying, lust moved in me against my will, my shaved pussy warming against the grey panties, my nipples tightening, my breath changing while I talked.
“Now say, who are you, what happened, what do you want from me, tell me everything, do not cut,” Ranga said, his thick lips close, his dark body filling the seat, his left hand pulling my shoulder a little toward him so my breast almost touched his chest.
I began saying it. I told him I was Sudha, a housewife, that my husband had built Sudha Sweet Stall and put my name on the shutter, that the stall had been number one, that we had a house of four floors over the ground floor and the basement, that five workers had made the sweets below while my husband sold them on the road. I told him Mary Sweets opened opposite, that Santosh spread rumours through every contact that our sweets were low quality, that the regulars stopped coming, that offers and extra samples did nothing. I told him Santosh laughed at my husband in front of customers and workers, that my husband came home silent and could not sleep, that our three sons saw their father humiliated, that the next day my husband settled the balance and sent the five workers off because he could not maintain them. I told him the basement went empty, the shutter went down, and this morning Santosh laughed at me also when I came out in this saree, the same laugh, and that laugh had made me so angry I wanted him gone from the road at any cost. While I said all of it the wind kept making my pallu flow, my breasts kept moving in the pink blouse, his eyes kept ogling, his left hand kept holding my shoulder, and the lust sat in me beside the anger, unwanted and already there.
“He humiliated my husband in front of everyone, he laughed at me today in front of our closed shop, he took the road with rumours, five men are gone, my husband cried on me in the night and he could not even make love, I came here from those videos, I want your help to kill Santosh, I want that laugh finished, I want my stall back, that is why I sat next to you,” I said, my hands tight in my lap, my breasts rising under the pink blouse, my grey panties wet against my shaved pussy as the auto kept moving, the auto driver listening from the front and looking at me in the mirror, Ranga’s ugly face close to mine and not yet answering.
Ranga took his left hand off my shoulder slowly, his fingers dragging across the pink blouse at my back, and he placed that hand on my lap. The heat of his palm came through the pink saree onto my thigh and stayed there, heavy, not moving at first, only holding my thigh as the auto shook over the road and the Ganesh banners kept sliding past. Then he grabbed my waist gently with the same hand, sliding up from my lap to the side of my waist, his fingers on the pink blouse, his thumb near the line where the blouse met the saree, holding me on the seat so I could not lean away. His eyes stayed on my face for one second and then they went down, ogling my heavy breasts inside the pink blouse and the white bra, ogling the nipples that the wind and his hand had already made tight, ogling the pallu each time it lifted and showed more of the blouse. The auto driver kept the auto moving and kept looking in the mirror. I sat with my grey panties wet against my shaved pussy and I felt the tension in my stomach and in my clit at the same time, anger for Santosh and lust for this ugly scary man sitting in one body, and I waited for him to speak.
“Why should I do that for you, you sat here and told me a long story, Santosh is not my problem, your stall is not my stall, what will you give me if I take this on, say it clearly,” Ranga said, his ugly face close, his thick lips almost at my ear, his breath on my neck, his hand tightening a little on my waist so my breast shifted toward his chest.
I swallowed. The wind lifted the pallu again and the pink blouse showed the full shape of my breasts and I knew he saw it. I thought of money because money was the only clean thing I could offer in an auto next to a man like this.
“I will give money, I can arrange money, tell me how much, I did not come empty, my husband built that stall, I will pay, I only want Santosh finished, I only want the laugh finished,” I said, my thighs tight under the saree, my grey panties stuck to my shaved pussy, my voice trying to stay even while his thumb moved once on my waist.
“I do not want money, money I have, you can keep your notes, that is not the price, do not talk money to me,” Ranga said, and he moved his hand from my waist back down to my lap and left it there, covering more of my thigh, the pink saree trapped under his palm, his eyes going slowly over my breasts again as if the answer was already sitting on my body and I was only late to say it.
The auto turned a corner. My gold anklets sounded. My ass slid an inch on the seat toward him. I looked at his thick lips and I remembered wondering in the night how a woman would kiss those lips and how ugly he would look naked, and the thought did not go away. I had to ask. The tension in my pussy and in my chest would not let me sit silent.
“Then what do you want, tell me, I came this far, I sat next to you, I told you everything, what do you want from me,” I said, my full lips open, my heavy breasts rising against the pink blouse, the mangalsutra shifting on my chest, my hand gripping the seat so I would not shake.
“I want you, that is the price, you, this body, you let me fuck you, if you agree I can kill Santosh tomorrow itself, no waiting, tomorrow he is gone, that is what I want, say yes or get down,” Ranga said, his fingers pressing my thigh through the pink saree, pressing close enough that I felt it in my clit, his dark ugly face waiting, his eyes on my nipples where they pressed the pink blouse, the auto still moving, the driver still listening, no place to stand up and no place to hide.
Santosh’s death was sweet to me. For a long second I sat with that sweetness and with his hand on my lap and with the pallu flying and with my grey panties wet, and killing Santosh began to appear more happiness to me than myself, more than my own body, more than the lust, more than the fear of giving this man what he was asking. I saw the closed shutter. I saw my husband crying on my neck in the dark. I saw the three sons watching him silent at the dining table. I saw Santosh laughing at me on the pavement in this same pink saree. The tension broke into the only answer that would take me back to a stall that opened, and I put the condition in before the yes could go without it.
“I will agree, I will let you fuck me after you kill Santosh and after you close his shop, not before, you do that first, then I will give you me, you agree to that and I am yours after,” I said, my hand still on the seat, my ass on the moving auto, my breasts against the wind, the pink pallu flying across his arm.
“I agree, Santosh first, his shop closed, then you, tomorrow I start, you go home and wait, when it is done I will call you to my house,” Ranga said, his palm still on my thigh, his ugly face close, and the deal sat between us in the moving auto while the road kept taking us around and around his area.
“Tell him your address, he will drop you home, say the road, say the stall,” Ranga said, his hand still leaving heat on my thigh even after he lifted it, his ugly face close in the moving auto.
“No, do not come to my house, drop me at the nearest auto stand, I will go from there, my husband is on the first floor, my sons are in the house, I cannot get down with you in front of our shutter,” I said, my pallu still restless from the wind, my grey panties still wet, fear coming back now that the deal was spoken.
“I have to look at Santosh and I have to look at his shop, I have to analyse the road, the shutter, who stands where, you will show me, that is part of this, you agreed, we go there, you show, then you go up,” Ranga said, and the auto driver waited with his hands on the wheel.
I sat with that for a second, the closed stall in my head, Santosh’s laugh in my head, and I agreed.
“All right, go to our road, I will show you from a distance, do not stop in front of Mary Sweets, do not stop in front of our shutter,” I said.
The auto reached our house. The driver parked at a distance, far enough that the two shutters sat down the road, Sudha Sweet Stall closed on one side, Mary Sweets open on the other. All of us got out. I stood in the pink chiffon saree on our own road again, the gold anklets sounding, and I lifted my chin and showed them.
“That one far side is Santosh, Mary Sweets, that shutter, he stands there and laughs, this one is ours, Sudha Sweet Stall, closed, the basement is under this, empty now,” I said, keeping my voice low.
Ranga and the auto driver walked around and casually scanned, looking at the road, at the opposite shutter, at our closed shutter, at the windows of the first floor, at the lane beside the house, not stopping long in one place, two men who could have been anyone passing. I walked away from them and I stood at my basement, at the door of the empty steps, the same door I used to go through every morning at 10 AM in a low saree when the five workers were still there. After they finished scanning they came toward me at the basement. I looked once at the road and at the first-floor windows and I went inside the empty basement so that no one would see the three of us standing together. They both followed inside. The air was still thick with old sugar and old ghee, the vessels sitting without fire, the heat leftover, and I stood in the pink saree between the silent stoves with Ranga and the auto driver coming down the steps after me, the deal already made, Santosh’s shop still open above us on the other side of the road.
Ranga stood close to me between the silent vessels in the empty basement and he asked for an advance.
“You agreed, I start tomorrow, I take an advance now, here, before I go,” Ranga said, his ugly face over mine, the auto driver standing near the steps and watching.
“How much money, tell me the amount, I can bring it, do not do this here, my husband is upstairs,” I said, my back near a cold stove, my heavy breasts rising in the pink blouse.
“Not money, a kiss, that is the advance, mouth on mouth, now, then I go and I look after the other side,” Ranga said, already putting his hands on my waist.
I reluctantly agreed. He put his filthy mouth on my lips. His mouth tasted of old smoke and spit, his thick lips wet, his tongue pushing into my mouth at once, filling my lips, licking my teeth, leaving his spit on my tongue and on the corners of my mouth, and he kissed me like that, messy, filthy, his nose against my face, his dark body pressing my breasts through the pink blouse and the white bra. I held the pink saree at my hip and I took that kiss because of tomorrow. In the middle of it he turned his head just enough to look at the auto driver and he spoke against my mouth.
“Yummy, you see this, yummy, rare like this does not walk into an auto every day,” Ranga said, and then he put his filthy mouth back on my lips and continued kissing me, panting between the kisses, looking at the driver again, his hands on my ass over the saree.
“Rare babe, look at these lips, look at these breasts, she will be great in bed, tomorrow after the job I will take all of this, you stay and watch the road,” Ranga said, and he kissed me again, spit on my chin, his tongue in my mouth, my grey panties wet, my clit tight, my full lips trapped under his thick lips.
“Stop, my husband will come down, the boys are in the house, this is the basement, he will hear, please, the kiss is enough, leave,” I said, breaking the kiss, turning my face, my mouth wet with him, my breath coming fast.
“Not just a kiss, I want your panties, the ones you are wearing now, that is also the advance, give,” Ranga said, holding my waist, his ugly face shining.
“No, I cannot give my panties, I have to go upstairs, I am wearing the saree, no,” I said, shaking my head, my hands on his chest.
He stood in front of the steps and he made it plain he would not leave without my panties. The auto driver did not move. The empty basement held the three of us and the leftover smell of sugar.
“I am not going, lift the saree, take them off, put them in my hand,” Ranga said.
I began lifting my pink saree along with my pink petticoat, the pink saree and the pink petticoat coming up over my thighs and over my hips, my shaved pussy showing in the grey panties, my ass showing, and I put my thumbs in the grey panties and I started removing them, pulling them down over my ass and over my pussy. By the time I was removing them he held my face with both hands and kissed my lips nicely, cheekily, a smaller kiss after the filthy one, almost a thank you on my mouth, and he collected my grey panties from my ankles with one hand. Then he and the auto driver left the basement and went up the steps and out toward the auto parked at a distance, and I stood in the empty basement with the pink saree and the pink petticoat falling back down, no panties on my shaved pussy, his spit still on my lips, the advance already gone with him.
I went back up from the empty basement to the first floor at 8 AM in the pink chiffon saree, no panties on my shaved pussy, the pink petticoat and the saree falling over my ass and my thighs, Ranga’s spit still on my lips, and I walked into the hall as if I had only come from the temple. My husband was awake. The three sons were coming down from the second and third and fourth floors. I went to the kitchen and I prepared breakfast, idli and chutney, the same breakfast I made when the stall was number one, my hands working the batter and the chutney while my grey panties were gone in another man’s pocket and my mouth still held his filthy taste. I served them at the dining table, idli on the plates, chutney in the bowl, coffee for my husband, and I sat with them and I settled down, the mangalsutra on my chest, the gold bangles on my wrists, the perfume from the morning still under the smell of the chutney.
“Temple was crowded, I came back, eat, the idli is hot, I will sit,” I said, keeping my voice ordinary, my thighs closed under the pink saree so no one would know I had no panties.
I went to the bathroom after they started eating and I brushed my teeth again, the brush hard on my tongue, paste filling my mouth, water again and again, trying to take his taste out. His taste was still in my mouth. The smoke and the spit and the filthy kiss sat under the paste, on my tongue, on the inside of my lips, and I stood at the basin with my heavy breasts in the pink blouse and I could not brush it away. I came back to the dining table and I sat with my family and I ate a little idli, and even the chutney could not cover what he had left in my mouth, the house settling into an ordinary morning while the advance was already done below us in the basement and tomorrow was already promised.
The whole day we were sad. The shutter of Sudha Sweet Stall stayed down. My husband sat on the first floor and did not go to the counter. The three sons moved quietly between their floors. I served lunch and I served coffee and I kept the pink saree on and I kept my face the same, and under the pink petticoat I still had no panties, and under my ordinary talk I waited.
At night I took off the pink chiffon saree and the pink blouse and the pink petticoat and the white bra and I put on my nighty, the nighty falling over my breasts and over my waist and over my hips, my shaved pussy bare under it, and I went to the balcony. Mary Sweets caught fire. I watched from the balcony in my nighty, the road lit by the flames, the opposite shutter already eating itself, smoke going up past our four floors, people starting to shout on the pavement. I stood with my hands on the balcony and I felt my goal arriving in front of my eyes. The laugh was burning. The rumours were burning. The shop that had taken our road was burning. I was delighted and I was full and I was shaking from it, and I did not let that come onto my face. My husband came behind me and he took out his phone to call the fire engine.
“I am calling them now, it will jump to our side, look at that, I am calling,” my husband said, already unlocking the phone.
“Stop, wait, do not call yet, let them come on their own, our shutter is down, it will not jump, put the phone down,” I said, and I put my hand on his wrist and I made him stop.
We stood on the balcony and we watched. I watched the fire take the inside of that shop and I was sure he was suffering. I was sure the heat reached him before he could get out. I was sure he screamed on the same road where he had laughed at my husband and laughed at me. I was sure he felt it for a long time, trapped behind his own shutter, breathing the smoke, burning while the shop he used against us became the thing that killed him. That certainty made me so happy I had to press my lips together. I thought of the name on our shutter. I thought of my husband number one again. I thought of the basement filling with workers and trays. I thought of the three sons seeing their father smile at the dining table. My goal was there in the flames and it was emotional in my chest like a prayer that had been answered in the ugliest way, and I held the balcony so I would not show any of it. I watched until everything on that side was burnt down, the shop, the trays, the name on the shutter, the place where he had stood in the morning. Only after that I myself called the fire engine.
When they came they broke what was left of the shutter. Santosh’s dead body was inside and it was as gruesome as a body can be after fire. He was charred black from head to foot, the face gone, the mouth open in a cooked scream, the lips burnt away, the eyes empty holes, the nose flattened, the hair gone, the hands drawn up and stiff and cracked, the fingers like burnt sticks, the stomach split and ruined, the legs thin and black and broken at the knees, the whole body stuck to what was left of the floor, stiff, wet in places from the water they threw, smelling so strong the people on the road covered their mouths and still stared. No one could have said it was a man except that it was lying where a man had been. Looking at that body I was sure he had suffered. A death that left a man like that was not a fast death. I felt so happy I had to hold the balcony with both hands so my face would not show it. I kept my mouth still. I kept my eyes only as wide as a neighbour’s eyes should be. Inside I was glad he had suffered. Inside I was glad the body looked like that. Inside I knew I had done what I came down the stairs that morning to do. My husband looked down and he did not know that this was the job I had paid for with a filthy kiss and with my grey panties in the empty basement, and I stood beside him in my nighty with my goal achieved on the other side of the road, and I let the night take the other shop off our street so ours could live again.
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