[Authorsunny]

Chapter 30 – Sunday Night
7 December 2025

She set her plate down. The movement was slow. She wiped her hands on the edge of her saree and came back to the table. She did not sit. She stood beside his chair, close enough that the yellow cotton brushed his arm.

“You said you wanted ice cream,” she said. “Naturals on the service road. The one that stays open till eleven. You mentioned the tender coconut last time.”

He looked up at her. “I said when I was in the car. I did not say we have to go tonight.”

“You have been driving since four.” Her voice was quiet. She was not looking at me. “You ate hotel food for two days. The room is hot. Ice cream would make you feel good.”

Azad studied her face. I watched from the wooden seat. She was not asking the way she asked about tea or about whether he wanted paneer. Her hand rested on the back of his chair. Her weight had shifted closer to him. The same restlessness that had been in her eyes when he left the kitchen was still there, under the ordinary words. She wanted to leave the flat. She wanted the car. She wanted whatever had started against the wall to continue somewhere the curtain was not thin and I was not ten feet away.

“You want to go,” he said. It was not a question.

“I am only saying the shop is open.” She met his eyes. A small smile touched her mouth, the kind that did not reach the rest of her face. “If you are tired, we can stay. I will make more tea.”

He held the look for a second longer than necessary. Then he nodded once. “Ten minutes. Then we go.”

She turned toward me. The smile she gave me was the ordinary one. “Beta, do you want any? I can bring it back.”

“No. I have eaten enough.”

“All right. I will take the keys with me, just in case you feel sleepy then I need not wake you up. You have office tomorrow!”

I nodded. I had seen it. She had made him say yes. She had stood close, used the heat of the room and the long drive and the ordinary excuse of ice cream, and she had got what she wanted. The kitchen had not been enough. She was taking him out so that it could continue.


Azad stood. As she reached for her small purse he placed his hand on her waist, fingers spread wide over the yellow saree, and left it there. She did not move it away. They stepped out onto the landing together.

The uncle from the opposite flat was just unlocking his door. He straightened when he saw them. His eyes went first to the hand on her waist, then to the low neck of the blouse, then to Azad’s face.

“Namaste, Azad bhai.”

“Namaste. All well with the water on your side today?” Azad asked. His hand remained openly where it was, thumb resting just above the knot of the saree. “Or still coming late?”

“Sometimes only, bhai. They are working on the main line.” The uncle’s gaze moved again, slower, over the open neck of Ma’s blouse and the way Azad’s fingers sat on her body. He looked away quickly. “Going out at this time? All well?.”

“Yes yes, going out for ice cream,” Azad said. He smiled easily. His hand did not shift. “She has been inside the whole day. The room is hot..”

“Yes, bhai. Its hot this year.” The uncle nodded, but his eyes flicked once more to the place where Azad’s palm rested on the yellow cotton, and to the upper curve of her breasts above the blouse, before he stepped back into his flat and closed the door harder than necessary.

A husband and wife from the second floor came down the stairs at the same moment. The man nodded. “Azad bhai. How are you?”

“All good, all good” Azad answered. His fingers tightened once on Ma’s waist, a small, visible adjustment that pulled her a half-step closer.

The woman looked directly at Ma’s sleeveless blouse, at the soft swell above the neckline, and at the hand that was not leaving her waist. She gave a smile that did not reach her eyes.

On the first-floor landing two women who had been standing and talking fell silent the moment Azad and Ma appeared. Their expressions changed at once. One of them—the corner-flat woman—looked at the hand on Ma’s waist, then at the low cut of the blouse, then upward. Her mouth tightened. Ma and Azad walked to the ground floor.

“Look at that,” she said whispering, but not quietly enough. “Hand on her waist in the open. Blouse cut so the whole chest is showing. No shame left.”

The other woman made a small sound. “Kalank. That is the word. She walks like this every day now. Friday night the whole floor heard what was happening upstairs. Now he takes her out at nine-thirty with his hand sitting on her like that. And she lets him.”

At the gate the white sedan was parked under the tube light. Azad opened the driver’s door himself and got in. The watchman came hurrying from his plastic stool and opened the passenger side. Ma gathered the saree carefully and sat. The door closed. The engine started. The car moved out of the lane.

I stood at the open door until the sound of the car had faded past the flyover. The landing was empty again. The two women on the first floor had gone back inside, but their voices still carried for a few seconds more, lower, repeating the same sentences about the hand on her waist and the blouse. The uncle opposite had shut his door hard enough that the sound reached me. I pulled ours closed and put the latch on. The room was quiet. The fan turned. The two AC boxes stood where they had been all day. On the bed the plastic-covered Paithani caught the light from the tube. I sat on the edge of the bed and looked at it. The border was heavy even through the wrapping. Maroon and gold.

My cock was still hard. It had not gone down properly since the kitchen. The spank through the yellow saree, the small moan she had tried to swallow, the way his hand had moved inside her blouse while I sat on the other side of the curtain with my phone dark in my hand. I had listened and stayed still. Now the flat was empty and the hardness sat in my shorts the same way it had this morning behind the curtain while Kavita’s hands moved over her oiled back. I knew I should stay. I knew the sensible thing was to lie down, put the phone on silent, and wait for the sound of the car that would not return until late. But the thought would not settle. They had gone for ice cream. Naturals on the service road. That was what she had said. That was what he had agreed to. But I had seen her face after he walked out of the kitchen. The colour still high. The mouth slightly swollen. The eyes bright and restless. She had stood at the dinner table and made him take her out. She had wanted more. And she had got it.

I wondered whether the ice cream was real or only the excuse that let them leave house. I wondered what they would do once the cups were empty. I wondered whether I would ever see any of it, or whether it would all happen behind another closed door the way it had on Friday night, while I stood on the landing and listened and came in my shorts. The excitement sat under the guilt the same way it had all day. I wanted to know. I wanted to see.

I waited two minutes. The room stayed quiet. No message. No sound of the car turning back into the lane. I stood, took the bike keys from the hook, the helmet from the chair, and went down. The watchman was back on his stool. He looked at me but did not speak. I started the bike and rode out the same way the sedan had gone.

Naturals was on the service road just before the highway climb. The parking strip in front was half full under the tube lights. I slowed when I saw the shop at the far end. I parked the bike two shops away, killed the engine, and stayed in the shadow of a closed hardware store. From there I could see the glass front of the parlour and the two tables outside. I looked for them inside. The counter was bright. A few people were ordering. I could not see the yellow saree. I could not see the grey shirt. For a moment I thought they had not come at all. I thought the ice cream had only been the words she used so that they could leave the flat and go somewhere else. The possibility sat in my chest and made the bike feel heavier under me.

Then a boy came out of the main door carrying two cups. He walked straight toward the white sedan. I recognised the car. I could not hear anything from the distance. But the cups were clear in his hands. He reached the driver’s side and handed them through the window. I saw a hand take them. The hand belonged to the grey shirt. The confirmation was small and ordinary and still it landed hard. They were here. They had come for ice cream. The excuse was real, at least for these few minutes.

I waited. Five minutes. The car did not move. I kept the helmet on and the engine off. My phone stayed dark in my pocket. I watched the sedan and tried to keep my breathing ordinary. Inside the car she would be eating. He would be watching her the way he had watched her at the table. The same heat that had been in her eyes against the kitchen wall would still be there, quieter now, sitting under the tube light. She had asked for this. The kitchen had started it. Now she was sitting with him in the open, eating ice cream.

Then the car moved. I started the bike and followed at a distance. They turned left at the first signal. For a second I thought they were heading back toward Andheri. The panic rose fast. If they reached home early and I was not there, what would I say. I had the keys. She had said she would take them so that she would not have to wake me. But if the flat was empty when they returned, the story would not hold. I was about to take the left exit myself and cut back toward the building when the sedan did not turn. It kept going. It took the right onto the Western Expressway. I followed.

Sunday night. The rush was low. It was almost ten. The white sedan stayed in the left lane. I kept two cars between us. Once a truck cut in and I lost them for a minute. I accelerated, checked the mirrors, and found the tail-lights again near the next flyover. My hands were tight on the grips. The wind was warm. I kept thinking of the kitchen wall. Her wrists above her head. Her mouth open under his. The way she had looked at him when he stepped away—the resistance gone, the heat still there. She had wanted more. And now they were on the highway and I was following and I did not know where they were going.

They exited left onto the service road near the Jogeshwari signal. I followed. The sedan slowed, then turned into a side lane. I stayed back. The building at the end of the lane had a gate and a watchman in a chair. The white sedan stopped outside. The watchman stood, saluted, and opened the gate without being asked. The car went inside. I rode past once, slowly, and looked at the name on the board above the gate. It was the same group name as our building in Andheri. The letters were the same. The colour was the same. This was the other building. The one in Jogeshwari that Ma had spoken about. Azad’s other building.

I could not stop. The watchman had already seen the bike. If I turned around and parked, he would ask what I was doing. I rode to the end of the lane, turned, and came back past the gate once more. The sedan was inside. I could not see them. The gate had closed. I kept going. The road back toward Andheri felt longer than it had on the way out. My chest was heavy. She was out with him again. Not in the flat. Not on the landing where I could hear. In his other building. In a room I would not see. The positive sat next to the weight and did not cancel it. She had preferred to go out instead of doing it in the flat in front of me or asking me to leave. That was something. She had not sent me out the way she had on Friday night. Instead she had taken him tonight. But the rest of it—the part I wanted to see, the part that had started against the kitchen wall and had not finished—was happening somewhere else. And I had followed them all the way here only to watch the gate close.

I reached our building in Andheri at ten-thirty. I climbed the stairs. The first-floor landing was quiet. The corner-flat door was closed. I unlocked our flat, went inside, and put the latch on.

I lay down on the bed. The sheet was cool. I knew she would not come early. The building in Jogeshwari was not a place you went for ten minutes of ice cream and then drove back. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep. Sleep did not come. I had followed them. I had wanted to see. Even when the panic rose about reaching home early, the larger part of me had wanted the car to keep going so that I could know where they went. I had wanted the confirmation that the kitchen had not been enough for her. I had wanted to imagine what was happening now in that other building—the yellow saree on the floor, the blouse open, his hands on her the way they had been against the wall, her mouth open the way it had been when she kissed him back. The thought made me hard again. I did not touch myself. I only lay there and let the images move. The guilt was still there. It sat next to the arousal and did not cancel it. I had accepted the relationship. I had told her I would not turn every evening into a courtroom. But the acceptance had not stopped the looking. It had not stopped the following. It had not stopped the way my body reacted when I thought of him inside her while I was ten feet away or few kilometres away. The cuck part of me wanted to see it. Not only hear it through a door. Not only imagine it from the sounds. I wanted to be in the room. I wanted to watch the way her face changed when he pushed into her. I wanted to see the same heat that had been in her eyes against the kitchen wall when she was under him. The thought was ugly and clear and it would not leave. I had followed them tonight because of it. I had stayed on the bike outside Naturals because of it. I had kept the distance on the highway because of it. And now I was lying on the bed we shared and the hardness was back and the images would not stop.

I opened her Instagram. The followers had reached four hundred. The four photographs from the Taj were still at the top. I scrolled through the comments. There were more than twenty. Some were ordinary. “Beautiful couple.” “Looking gorgeous.” “Congratulations.” She had replied to a few of those. Short lines. “Thank you.” “So sweet” I could not tell whether it was her or Kunal, her instagram account manager. The replies were polite and did not sound like her voice. Other comments were not polite. One said the blouse was too deep for a family function. Another was shorter and uglier. “Hot slut in that blouse.” She had not replied to that one. Or Kunal had not. I looked at the photographs again. The deep V. The wired bra visible at the edges. Azad’s hand low on her waist in the couple shot. Her face turned toward him. I imagined what they were doing now in the Jogeshwari building. The images sat behind my eyes and would not leave. My cock was hard against the sheet. I did not touch it. I only scrolled and looked and let the thoughts move.

A suggestion appeared at the side of the screen. Nair ma’am’s account. Private. The profile photograph was a candid shot. She was in a dark blue body hugging one piece sleeveless dress. She was standing somewhere with old buildings behind her. Europe, probably. The light was soft. She was not looking at the camera. I stared at the photograph for a few seconds. Tomorrow was Monday. Menon sir’s last day. The farewell she had arranged. The talk on the floor had said her name was in the running for the chair. I did not know whether it was true. I only knew that she had called me into her cabin, put her hands on my shoulders, and leaned close enough that the rust blouse had opened. I clicked the follow button. The request went. Her account stayed private. I locked the phone and set it face down on the mattress.

The clock moved past eleven-thirty. No sound of the car. No message. I closed my eyes again. Sleep came in pieces.

At two I turned onto my side and opened my eyes. The other half of the bed was empty. I checked the time on the phone. Two-oh-seven. She had not returned. I lay still for a minute and listened. The fan. The distant sound of a scooter on the main road. Nothing else. I closed my eyes and waited for sleep to come back. It did, slowly. The images of the kitchen wall and the Jogeshwari gate stayed behind my eyes until they thinned.