Chapter 5: The catching game
The dinner that night was a lavish affair, a celebration Prema hadn’t authorized but which Prem had commanded. Crystal glimmered under the low light of the chandelier, and the rich smell of biryani and saffron competed with Prem’s ever-present cigar, smoldering in an ashtray beside his plate. The children chattered, buoyed by a festive atmosphere they couldn’t quite understand.
Prema watched her husband from the head of the table, her fingers resting lightly on her still-flat stomach. The secret had felt too large to contain. She’d shown him the test that afternoon in their bathroom, the two pink lines stark against white plastic. He’d looked at it, then at her, his expression unreadable. Then he’d pulled her into a crushing embrace, his hand cradling the back of her head. “Good,” he’d murmured into her hair, the word vibrating through her. “Very good.”
Now, as the servants cleared the main course, Prema felt a surge of boldness, a need to assert her new, fragile claim. She smiled, her eyes sparkling with a deliberate, playful light. “This is all your fault, you know,” she said, her voice carrying clearly to Shilpa, who was meticulously shredding a piece of naan on her plate.Prem leaned back in his chair, the leather groaning. He took a slow drag from his cigar, his eyes, hooded and amused, fixed on his wife. “Is that so?”
“Mmm,” Prema nodded, the gesture flirtatious.“All those nights. You have no self-control.”
A slow, wicked grin spread across Prem’s face. He exhaled a plume of smoke, the gesture languid and theatrical. “Self-control is for weaker men,” he declared, his voice loud enough to fill the cavernous dining room. “And rubber,” he added, the crass word dropping into the suddenly still air like a stone, “rubber is for boys. It ruins the feeling.The real feeling.”
Shilpa’s head jerked up. A furious blush stained her cheeks and throat, spreading like spilled wine. Her breath caught, a tiny, audible hitch. Under the table, Prema saw, or rather sensed, the subtle, convulsive press of her sister’s thighs together. The triumph that surged in Prema’s own belly was hot and complicated, mixed with a sharp pang of embarrassment that only fed her excitement. She shot a look at Shilpa—a look meant to be a warning, a demarcation of territory, but which trembled on the edge of shared, illicit knowledge.Prem watched the exchange, his grin deepening. He had orchestrated the moment, and the ripple of discomfort and arousal was his reward.
In the days that followed, the pregnancy became the official truth of the house, a sanctified reason for Prema’s fatigue and Prem’s occasional, surprising tenderness. But it also acted as a perverse catalyst for Shilpa. The granting of a legitimate heir seemed to strip away her last vestiges of caution, transforming her lingering guilt into a mischievous, taunting energy.It began subtly. A glass of water “accidentally” spilled near Prem, the liquid darkening the fine cotton of his trousers in a suggestive patch. He’d laughed, a low rumble, and chased her briefly into the pantry, emerging moments later with a smirk and Shilpa’s hurried, breathless apologies ringing behind him.Then it became a pattern.A game.
One afternoon, Prema was resting on the deep red velvet sofa in the living room, a book open but unread on her lap. The fire crackled in the hearth. Shilpa flitted past, a flash of peach-colored silk, and snatched the newspaper from where Prem was reading it in his armchair.
“You don’t need this, Jiju,” she trilled, her voice bright with challenge. “It’s all boring politics.”
Prem looked up slowly. “Give it back, Saali.”
“Make me,” she said, and darted away, weaving between the furniture.
What happened next was a study in controlled predation.Prem didn’t rush. He unfolded himself from the chair with a deliberate, powerful grace. He pursued her at a walk, his strides long and sure, cornering her near the grand piano. Shilpa’s playful protests were half-hearted, muffled by giggles as she tried to wriggle past him, her body twisting in the space between his chest and the polished mahogany.“Jiju, stop! Let me go!”
“You started it,” he murmured, his voice a warm, intimate counterpoint to her feigned distress. One large hand settled on her waist, not to hurt, but to hold. The other braced against the piano lid, caging her.She squirmed, the silk of her saree whispering against his tailored trousers.
From the sofa, Prema watched, her breath tight in her chest. She saw the exact moment the play-fight shifted. Saw the way Prem’s body stilled, his focus narrowing to the woman pinned before him. Saw the fabric of his trousers strain, the unmistakable, thickening bulge manifesting itself against the fine wool.It was blatant. A crude, physical proclamation happening in the soft afternoon light, directly in her line of sight.Shilpa saw it too. Her giggles died.Her wriggling ceased. Her eyes widened, dropped, then flew back to his face, a mixture of shock and a terrified fascination.She became very still.
Prem didn’t release her. He held her there, letting the silent evidence of his arousal speak for him, his gaze locked on hers.Then, slowly, he leaned in, his mouth near her ear. Prema couldn’t hear the words, but she saw Shilpa shiver, saw her eyes flutter closed for a second.Then he stepped back, releasing her as suddenly as he’d caught her. He adjusted himself with a casual, unashamed gesture, picked up the discarded newspaper from the piano bench, and returned to his armchair as if nothing had happened. Shilpa scurried from the room, her face aflame.Prema’s skin felt cold. The scene had lasted less than a minute, but it had carved itself into her mind. That evening, as Prem undressed for bed, she finally spoke, her voice thin. “What was that today?”
“Hmm?” he asked, pulling his shirt over his head, revealing the thick thatch of chest hair she once found so comforting.“With Shilpa.By the piano. It’s… it’s becoming a habit.”
Prem turned, his eyes gleaming in the lamplight. He walked towards her, his body a landscape of muscle and intention.“It’s nothing,” he said, his voice low. “Just Jiju-Saali fun.She teases.I catch her. It’s innocent.” He sat on the edge of the bed, his hand landing high on her thigh. “It’s how families are.Playful.”
“Innocent?” The word choked her. “What I saw wasn’t innocent.”
He laughed, a dark, rich sound. “You saw what you wanted to see.” His hand slid higher, the heat of his palm burning through her nightdress. “But since it’s got you so worked up…”
His other hand came up to cup her face, his thumb stroking her jaw. His eyes were intense, but they looked through her, at something else. “She’s so quick when she runs,” he mused, his voice a rough whisper.“Like a little bird. But I always catch her.” His hand on her thigh moved, insistent, pushing the fabric aside. “The way she breathes when I hold her… so fast. Like this.”
He was on her then, his weight familiar and overwhelming, his mouth claiming hers with a possessive hunger. But his words, his terrible, exciting words, were for Shilpa. “She tries to wriggle away,” he growled against Prema’s neck, his hips pinning her down.“But she doesn’t mean it. You saw.She stops.She likes being caught.”
Prema’s body arched, betraying her. His every touch was electric, fueled by the voyeuristic thrill of the afternoon, by the image of him pressing against her sister. He was fucking her with a fierce, driving intensity, but his mind was elsewhere.
“My good Saali,” he breathed, the endearment a sacrilege in the marital bed.“So bold in the living room. So shy when she feels how much I want her.” His pace quickened, becoming punishing, exhilarating. “You felt it too, didn’t you?You saw.”
She had. And the shameful, conquering heat of it crested within her, a wave pulled by the moon of his obsession. She cried out, a sound torn between ecstasy and despair, as he followed her, his own release a harsh, triumphant shout that echoed in the room where, just hours before, his hands had been on another woman. He collapsed beside her, his breathing ragged, one heavy arm thrown across her body, anchoring her to the spot, to him, to the unbearable and thrilling reality of their new world.
The arm remained, a leaden weight of claimed satisfaction, until dawn bleached the darkness from the room.Prema slipped from under it, her body aching with a hollow fulfillment. The pregnancy lent her a new, brittle authority within the house, but it was a crown of thorns worn over a bruise.She moved through the next days in a haze of fatigue and simmering observation, the secret of the piano incident festering between the three of them like an unspoken pact.
Shilpa’s mischief evolved.It was no longer careless accident but deliberate, targeted provocation. While Prema rested upstairs one afternoon, Shilpa floated into the living room where Prem brooded over a ledger. She hummed, pretending to water a plant near his desk.Her hand, adorned with a simple bangle, swept a pen to the floor. It clattered against the leg of his chair.“Clumsy me,” she sighed, not sounding sorry at all.
As she bent to retrieve it, the neck of her salwar kameez gaped, offering a deliberate glimpse of the shadowed curve of a breast.Prem’s eyes tracked the movement, the ledger forgotten. His fingers stilled around his cigarette.“Leave it,” he said, his voice gravel.
She straightened slowly, the pen in her hand, a challenge in her downcast eyes.“But Jiju, your pen.”
“I said leave it.” This time, the command was a low vibration in the air between them.For a heartbeat, she held her ground. Then a smile, quick and daring, touched her lips. She dropped the pen again, turned on her heel, and darted from the room.This was not the playful flight of before. This was an invitation, a gauntlet thrown.Prem watched her go, the muscle in his jaw tightening. He took one last, deep drag of his cigarette, crushing the ember with deliberate force before rising.
He found her in the hallway, pretending to examine a painting. The sound of his footsteps echoed off the polished floor.She glanced over her shoulder, her eyes wide with feigned surprise, and bolted towards the staircase. He was on her before she reached the third step, one arm hooking around her waist, hauling her back against the solid wall of his body.
“Enough games, Saali,” he growled into her ear, his breath hot.
She wriggled, a genuine, frantic movement now.“Jiju, let go! Someone will see!”
“Let them.” His grip tightened, his other hand splaying possessively over her stomach, pulling her flush against him. She could feel the hard, urgent ridge of his arousal pressing into the small of her back. A sharp gasp tore from her throat, part panic, part exhilaration.He didn’t ask. He simply moved, steering her with relentless purpose down the hall, not towards his own chambers, but towards the smaller, sunlit guest room that was hers.
“No, Jiju, not here—” Her protest was breathless, muffled against his shoulder as he shouldered the door open.“Here,” he corrected, kicking the door shut behind them. The room smelled of her jasmine talc and innocence. He backed her towards the narrow bed, its floral coverlet a stark contrast to the dark intensity of his presence.She resisted, pushing her hands weakly against his chest. “This is wrong.”
“You stopped meaning that weeks ago.” He caught her wrists, pinning them above her head with one hand.The action arched her body towards him. His free hand traced the line of her cheek, down her throat, over the frantic pulse. “You’ve been parading in front of me since the day I moved here.My little Saali. My wife’s beautiful, untouched sister.” The words were not sweet; they were accusatory, thrilling.“The whole town talks.You think I don’t know what they say in the market? They whisper about how you look at me.They wonder when I’ll claim what’s been offered.”
He leaned down, his mouth hovering above hers.“They talk about how a Jiju should educate his Saali in certain… matters.”
Then his mouth was on hers, not asking but taking, a conquest.Her playful resistance melted into a muffled whimper that became a moan. He released her wrists, and her hands didn’t push him away; they clutched at his shoulders, her nails biting through the fabric. The kiss broke, and he began to undo the buttons of her kameez, his movements efficient, impersonal in their certainty.
“You want to know what they really say?” he murmured, his lips traveling down her throat as the fabric parted. “They say I’ve had call girls who look like you. They’re wrong.” He pulled the cloth away, baring her. “None of them were you.”
Her eyes were tightly shut, every muscle taut.He shed his own clothes quickly, his athletic build a intimidating silhouette against the window light. When he joined her on the bed, the springs groaned. His hands were everywhere, mapping her tremors, parting her thighs.“Look at me, Shilpa.”
She opened her eyes, swimming with fear and wanting. He positioned himself, the blunt, heavy pressure a foreign and terrifying promise.“They say,” he whispered, holding her gaze, a villain narrating his own crime, “a Jiju’s right is his Saali’s first lesson.”
He pushed in. The sound she made was a sharp, pained cry that dissolved into a choked sob. He stilled, allowing her body to adjust, his own sheened with a sudden sweat.Her breath came in ragged hitches against his neck. Then he began to move, a slow, deep rhythm that stole the sob and replaced it with something else.The pain blurred, transformed by the relentless, claiming cadence of his hips. Her fingers wound into the thick, dark hair on his chest, not to push away, but to anchor herself to the sensation.The innocent protests died.Her hips rose tentatively to meet his thrusts.
The room filled with the sounds of them: the wet, rhythmic slap of skin, the creaking bedframe, Prem’s guttural curses, Shilpa’s high, broken whimpers that lost their edge of distress and gained a keening urgency. She climbed without understanding the summit, her world narrowing to the friction and the force and the man above her. When it broke over her, it was a silent, seismic shock that arched her back and stripped the voice from her throat. He followed seconds later, his release a harsh, triumphant shout as he drove into her one final, shuddering time.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing mingling in the sunlit air. Then, with a languid grace, Prem rolled onto his back beside her, pulling a cigarette from the discarded pile of his clothes on the floor. He lit it, the flare of the match stark in the quiet room. He smoked in silence, one hand behind his head, the other tracing idle patterns through his own chest hair, damp with sweat. Shilpa lay still, her body thrumming, staring at the ceiling, a single tear drying on her temple.
The door opened.
Prema stood there, a glass of water in her hand, her face a mask of frozen horror that crumbled into realization. Her eyes swept from Prem’s naked, smoking form to her sister’s disheveled state on the rumpled sheets, the evidence stark and unmistakable.The glass slipped from her fingers, shattering on the wooden floor.
“What have you done?” The shout was raw, a blade of sound scraping the room’s newfound intimacy. “You animals!In my house! On her bed!”
Shilpa flinched, scrambling to pull the coverlet over herself, her face ashen with sudden, terrible shame. She looked from her sister’s shattered expression to Prem, seeking… escape, forgiveness, something.
Prem exhaled a slow stream of smoke.His face showed no remorse, only a deep, satiated calm. He looked at Shilpa’s panic, then at Prema’s fury. Without a word, he stretched out his arm, the one not holding the cigarette. His hand wrapped around Shilpa’s bare forearm. He pulled her towards him, not gently, but with definitive possession, tucking her trembling body against his side. He looked directly at his wife, a wicked, unrepentant smile curving his lips as his arm settled around his saali’s bare shoulders.
He looked directly at his wife, a wicked, unrepentant smile curving his lips as his arm settled around his saali’s bare shoulders. The silence that followed the shattering glass was absolute, broken only by the sound of Prem taking another slow, deliberate drag from his cigarette. Shilpa trembled against him, her skin cool where he touched it, her eyes darting between her sister’s devastated face and the dispassionate ceiling.
“What have I done?” Prem finally echoed, his voice a study in calm exhaustion. He blew smoke toward the water-spattered floor. “I’ve taken what was offered.” His fingers stroked Shilpa’s arm, a casual, soothing motion that felt like a brand. “For months, Prema. Right under your nose, in your own living room, with your silent permission.”
Prema stood frozen in the doorway, her chest heaving. “My permission? You’re a monster.”
“Am I?” He shifted, the sheets rustling, and fixed her with a gaze that was utterly drained of pretext. “You watched. You listened at doors. You got wet thinking about it in our bed.” Each word was a clinical strike. “You wanted this tension. You fed on it. You used it to feel something again.” He stubbed the cigarette out on her bedside table, leaving a black scar on the pale wood. “This pregnancy you’re so proud of? Conceived while I was picturing her.”
The cruelty was so specific it stole the air from the room. Prema’s hand flew to her stomach.
“You wanted a game,” he continued, his tone flat, final. “Games have winners and losers. You lost.” He glanced at Shilpa, who had begun to cry silent, shamed tears. “She lost too. The only difference is she’s honest about why she’s here.” He turned his face back to Prema, his expression empty of triumph, merely stating facts. “I confessed to those call girls, didn’t I? I told you exactly what I was. You thought you could be the exception to a man’s nature. You thought a child would fence me in.” A short, humorless laugh escaped him. “You built the walls of this prison yourself. I’m just living in it.”
He pushed himself up then, swinging his legs off the bed, his nakedness an affront in the gentle room. He found his trousers, stepping into them with a weary efficiency. “The rumors are true. All of them.” He fastened his belt, the click loud in the silence. “The necklace from Chennai? It’s in my drawer. The driver did see us by the river. Her earring is under my desk.” He looked at Prema, buttoning his shirt over the dark hair she once traced with affection. “You can have your righteous anger now. It’s the only part you didn’t fake.”
Without another glance at either woman, he walked to the door. He paused beside his wife, close enough for her to smell her sister’s jasmine on his skin. “The terrace is mine tonight,” he said, his voice low. “Either of you can come. Or don’t.” He stepped over the glittering shards of glass and walked down the hall, his footsteps fading into the depths of the house he owned.