Chapter 19: Bathroom Stall Takedown
The silence after the conference room was a living thing. It followed Sid home, sat with him at dinner with Priya, listened as he praised her roasted eggplant. It watched him stare at his phone, the blank screen a taunt. He waited for the fallout, the regret, the furious text. Nothing came.
Five days later, his personal phone buzzed on the treadmill at his club. A single emoji. A winking face. Below it, a location pin for a café in Bandra. Followed by: He’s meeting me here in 20.
The message was a grenade with the pin already pulled. Sid stopped running, his heart hammering for a different reason. He knew what she was doing. She was drawing a line in the sand, then daring him to cross it. It was the most dangerous, most exhilarating thing anyone had ever done to him.
He showered, changed, drove. The café was all exposed brick and artisanal light bulbs, filled with the gentle clatter of laptops and the hiss of an espresso machine. He spotted them immediately at a corner table. Anya, in a simple sunflower-yellow sundress. And the boyfriend—Rohan, he remembered—a pleasant-looking man in glasses, leaning forward, laughing at something she’d said.
Sid bought a black coffee he didn’t want and took a seat at the opposite end of the room, partially hidden by a large fiddle-leaf fig. He watched. He saw her perform. The attentive smile, the nod, the way she touched Rohan’s hand across the table. It was a masterclass in deception. Every so often, her eyes would flicker, scanning the room. They passed over him, paused for a nanosecond, moved on.
His phone lit up.
Bathroom. Last stall.
He watched as she whispered something to Rohan, a small, apologetic smile on her face. She stood, picking up her small woven purse, and walked toward the back hallway. Sid gave it a sixty count. His mouth was dry. He stood, abandoning his full cup, and followed.
The hallway was short, dim, leading to a unisex single-toilet bathroom and a fire exit. The door to the bathroom was slightly ajar. He pushed it open.
The space was cramped, clean but worn. The air was thick with the smell of lemony cleaner and, underneath, the damp, mossy scent of old plumbing. The shower from a neighbouring apartment hissed faintly through the wall. Anya stood by the sink, her back to him, reflected in the speckled mirror.
He locked the door with a soft, definitive click.
In the mirror, their eyes met. Hers were wide, dark with fear and a blazing, unmistakable hunger. No words. He crossed the space in two strides, spinning her around and pinning her against the cold tiles. His mouth found hers, not in a kiss but in a taking. She opened for him instantly, her tongue meeting his with a desperate ferocity. Her hands clawed at the back of his shirt.
He shoved the thin straps of her sundress down her arms. The fabric pooled at her waist. She wasn’t wearing a bra. He palmed her breast, rough, his thumb circling her nipple before he lowered his head and took it into his mouth. He sucked hard, biting down on the peak until she gasped, her head thumping back against the tile.
“He’s right out there,” he murmured against her skin, his voice a ragged whisper.
“I know.” Her breath hitched as his hand slid under her dress, up her thigh. His fingers found her panties, already soaked. He hooked a finger into the side, tearing the flimsy cotton. “Fuck, Sid…”
He unzipped his trousers, freeing himself. He was painfully hard, the ache a constant since he’d walked into the café. He pushed her dress up around her hips, grabbed her thigh, and hiked it around his waist. He positioned himself at her entrance, feeling her heat, her slick readiness.
“Look at me,” he commanded.
She did. Her eyes were glazed, her lips swollen.
“Tell him you’re sorry,” Sid said, and drove into her, burying himself to the hilt in one brutal thrust.
A choked cry escaped her. He slapped a hand over her mouth, muffling the sound. Her body clenched around him, impossibly tight, a velvet fist. He held himself there, deep, letting her adjust, letting the sheer wrongness of it—the boyfriend sipping coffee meters away, the public bathroom, the hissing pipes—seep into their bones.
Then he moved. Short, sharp, punishing strokes. The tile was cold against his forearm braced beside her head. Her body was hot, searing. Every thrust rocked her against the wall. Her moans were swallowed by his palm. He could feel the vibrations against his skin.
“You like this?” he gritted out, his rhythm merciless. “You like getting fucked while your boyfriend talks about your future?”
Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes, but she nodded, a frantic, eager bobbing of her head. She was clutching his shoulders, her nails digging through the fabric of his shirt. Her hips ground against his, meeting every jab.
“You’re a fucking liar,” he breathed, increasing his pace. The slap of skin, the wet, filthy sound of their joining echoed in the tiny room. “You said goodbye. You said it couldn’t happen.”
“I lied,” she sobbed against his hand, the words barely intelligible. “I’m a liar. I need it. I need you to fuck me like this. Harder. Please, God, harder.”
Her plea undid him. He fucked her with a pure, unadulterated rage—at her, at himself, at the clean, simple life waiting for her outside the door. His control splintered. He was all animal hunger, seeking his own ruin in the clench of her body. The world narrowed to this: the smell of her sweat and sex, the choked sounds in her throat, the driving need to claim, to mark, to be the secret that corrupted everything.
He felt her orgasm build, a tightening coil. Her inner muscles fluttered, then clamped down on him in violent, rhythmic waves. Her body went rigid, a silent scream against his hand. The intensity of her climax tore through him. With a final, deep groan, he emptied himself into her, his vision whiting out at the edges, his whole body shuddering with the release.
He stayed inside her, slumped against her, both of them panting, dripping with sweat. The sound of their ragged breathing was obscenely loud. Slowly, he removed his hand from her mouth. She gulped in air, her forehead resting on his shoulder.
He softened, slipped out of her. A trickle of their combined wetness ran down her inner thigh. The evidence. He watched it for a moment, a dark, shameful truth against her sun-kissed skin.
Reality crashed back in. The hiss of the shower. The distant clang of a coffee machine. A burst of laughter from the café.
He pulled away, zipping himself up. His hands were not quite steady. She peeled herself off the wall, her movements slow, drained. She looked at herself in the cracked mirror—hair wild, dress crumpled, mouth red and bruised, eyes hollow. She pulled the straps of her dress up, covering herself. The fabric did nothing to hide the ravaged woman beneath.
She bent, picked up the torn scrap of her panties, and shoved them into her purse. She turned on the tap, splashed cold water on her face, patted it with a paper towel. She tried to fix her hair.
“Anya,” he said, his voice rough.
“Don’t.” She wouldn’t look at him. “Just don’t.”
She unlocked the door, opened it a crack, peered out. The hallway was empty. She slipped out without a backward glance.
Sid stood alone in the bathroom, the ghost of her heat still on his skin, the taste of her in his mouth. He looked in the mirror. The man staring back was a stranger—greedy, hollowed out, utterly possessed. The conference room had been a collision. This was a descent.
He heard a burst of laughter again from the café. Rohan’s laugh. He wondered what joke Anya would tell when she returned to the table, what excuse she’d give for the flush on her skin.
He straightened his shirt, ran a hand through his hair. The path back to his car felt a thousand miles long. He had crossed every line. There was no going back. She was his addiction now, and the dose required was only getting more dangerous. The thought filled him with a profound, terrifying calm.