Chapter 9: The dance
The golden afternoons now carried a different heat. The arrangement, the marriage, had not contained the energy but amplified it, broadcasting it to the world. Zarina, once the shy sister-in-law helping with the children, was now a figure of intense scrutiny and whispered envy. When she accompanied Nurjahan to the market, eyes lingered. When she sat in the garden, a book untouched in her lap, the household staff spoke in hushed, knowing tones. The importance of Zarina increased among all acquaintances. She was no longer an appendage; she was a cornerstone of the strange, formidable edifice of Prem’s household.
Nurjahan felt this shift in the air, a change in pressure. She was both happy and jealous. The rumors that reached her were double-edged swords. At a kitty party, a woman leaned in, her eyes bright with malice disguised as camaraderie. “My dear, we all admire you. Such… modernity. To keep your husband so content within the home. They say he has the stamina of a stallion, that he keeps both his wives… thoroughly irrigated.” The laughter that followed was brittle. Another time, at the temple, she overheard two elderly aunties: “First he lured the elder sister, the poor love-struck girl, and then the younger. A package deal. The man knows what he wants and simply takes it. No shame.” Nur’s initial flush of humiliation slowly morphed into a strange, defiant pride. The shame was theirs, for their small, jealous lives. She had structured a universe others could only gossip about.
Prem heard the rumors too, filtered through the boasts of business associates who clapped him on the back. “Two wives, yaar! And sisters! You devil. They say you wear them out, that they walk funny in the mornings.” He would sip his whiskey, offer a modest, knowing smile, and change the subject. Internally, he felt proud. The talk was not of his neediness anymore, but of his potency, his possession. He had transformed a vulnerability into a legend.
It was in this atmosphere of buzzing reputation that Nurjahan suggested the mujra. “Shabnam is in town,” she said over dinner one evening, watching Prem tear into a piece of roast chicken with his hands. “You remember my friend from college? She’s performing locally. We should have her here. A private performance. For us.” Her eyes flicked to Zarina, who looked up, curious. “A celebration,” Nur added, the word hanging in the air.
Prem wiped the grease from his fingers, his interest sharpening. He remembered Shabnam. A vibrant, unrestrained girl with a dancer’s hips and a laugh that suggested a vast, unspoken knowledge of pleasures. “Here?” he asked, a slow smile spreading.
“Why not?” Nur said, her voice light. “We have the courtyard. It will be intimate. Just family.”
The evening arrived, laced with a false formality. The courtyard was strung with fairy lights, casting a shimmering net over the stone tiles. Piles of cushions were arranged before a single, ornate chair for Prem. Nur and Zarina sat on a low divan to his side, a united front of sorts. The air smelled of night-blooming jasmine and anticipation.
Shabnam entered with a jingle of anklets. She was a vision in a diaphanous fuchsia lehenga, her midriff bare, a delicate veil covering her hair but doing nothing to obscure the bold kohl outlining her eyes. She was all sinuous curves and confident grace.
“Nur didi, Prem jiju,” she greeted, her voice a melodic husk. Her gaze swept over Zarina, acknowledging her with a slight, unreadable nod. “And the new bride. Congratulations.”
The tabla and harmonium player she’d brought began a slow, thrumming rhythm. What followed was not a traditional folk dance. It was a meticulously crafted seduction. Shabnam’s mujra was a conversation directed solely at Prem. Her hips carved complex, languid figures in the air. Her wrists fluttered like captive birds near the swell of her breasts. When she spun, the layers of her skirt flew up, offering glimpses of her sleek thighs. Her eyes, heavy-lidded and smoldering, never left Prem’s face. She sang old ghazals of forbidden longing, but she mangled the lyrics with subtle, deliberate shifts, turning poetry of devotion into verses of carnal hunger.
Nurjahan watched, her spine rigid. She saw the raw focus in Shabnam’s performance, saw the woman mentally undressing her husband right there in her courtyard. She felt a hot wire of jealousy singe her insides. This had been a test, and she was instantly failing it. Zarina, meanwhile, watched with a technical fascination. She saw the techniques—the arch of the back, the deliberate slowing of a hip thrust, the way Shabnam bit her lower lip as she sank into a low squat, her gaze locked with Prem’s. She was learning.
Prem sat absolutely still in his chair, a king holding court. His fingers curled around the arms, knuckles white. He could feel the heat of the performance like a physical touch. His cock, trapped within his tailored trousers, stirred and thickened, a stubborn, predictable answer to the visual onslaught. He wanted to reach out and pull her to him, to tear that flimsy fabric and take her on the cool stone. But he felt the twin pressures from his sides—Nur’s jealous scrutiny, Zarina’s observant silence. He remained a statue, granting only a slight, approving tilt of his head.
The performance ended with Shabnam collapsing in a final, graceful prostration at his feet, her breath coming in quick, dramatic pants, her forehead almost touching his shoes. The musicians held the last note, then let it fade into the night.
A thick silence followed, broken only by the chirping of crickets.
“Beautiful,” Prem finally said, his voice a little rough. “You have… remarkable talent, Shabnam.”
She rose, a sheen of sweat making her skin glow in the fairy lights. “For you, jiju, anything,” she purred, before turning to hug Nur, the perfect picture of a grateful friend.
Later, the house settled into a tense quiet. Shabnam was installed in a guest room in the west wing. Nurjahan retreated to her bedroom, claiming a headache, her mind a riot of self-inflicted torment. Zarina, buzzing with a strange, competitive energy, went to her own room.
Prem found her there, brushing her hair with violent, swift strokes. He didn’t speak. The image of Shabnam’s undulating hips was burned onto his retina. He pushed Zarina onto the bed, his mouth silencing her surprised gasp. He fucked her with a driven, almost angry intensity, his hands gripping her wrists pinned above her head. He took her fast and hard, his eyes open but unseeing, his mind full of fuchsia fabric and bare, gyrating midriff. Zarina climaxed with a sharp cry, but it felt hollow, a performance for an audience of one who was mentally elsewhere. He spent himself inside her with a grunt, then rolled off, already feeling restless, unsatisfied.
He waited. He listened to the house breaths. The soft snore of a child. The distant creak of Nur’s bed as she turned. The absolute silence from the west wing. It was a magnet.
He rose, pulled on a robe, and padded barefoot through the moonlit corridors. He stood outside Shabnam’s door for a full minute, then turned the handle. It was unlocked.
She was sitting by the window, still in her lehenga, though the dupatta was discarded. She was smoking a cigarette, the ember glowing in the dark. She didn’t startle.
“I wondered if you’d come, jiju,” she said, exhaling a plume of smoke.
“You danced like you wanted me to,” he replied, closing the door behind him.
“I did. I do.” She stubbed the cigarette out. “Nur didi is a lucky woman. Twice over, it seems.” Her tone was not bitter, but assessing.
“You’re not afraid of her?”
Shabnam stood and walked toward him, her movements still flowing from the dance. “Should I be? I saw the way you looked at me. You weren’t looking at a sister-in-law. You were looking at a woman.” She stopped an inch from him. “I’ve heard the stories, you know. About your… appetites. About how you first lured the elder sister, and then the younger. They say you have a cock that demands worship.”
Prem felt a surge of that internal pride, hot and dark. The rumors had reached even her. They were an aphrodisiac. He untied his robe, letting it fall open. “See for yourself.”
Her eyes dropped. In the dim light, she saw his semi-aroused state, the heavy, thick shape of him. A slow smile spread on her lips. “A responsibility,” she whispered. She sank to her knees before him, not like a devotee, but like a connoisseur. “Such a famous thing. Let’s see if it lives up to the gossip, jiju.”
Her mouth on him was not the shy, learning exploration of Zarina, nor the familiar, possessive mastery of Nur. It was bold, expert, and wholly blasphemous. She used her tongue, her teeth in gentle scrapes, her hands cupping and weighing him. She talked, her words muffled. “They say you keep them both full. That you fuck the jealousy out of one and the innocence out of the other. Is it true?”
He tangled his hands in her hair, guiding her pace, a groan escaping him. “You’ll find out.”
He pulled her up, turned her, and bent her over the windowsill. The night air was cool on their skin. He pushed her lehenga up, found her wet and ready. He drove into her from behind, the view of his own moonlit gardens swaying before him as he moved. This was different. This was pure, uncomplicated carnality, a tribute to his own notoriety.
She matched him thrust for thrust, pushing back against him, her breath fogging the glass. “Yes,” she hissed. “The rumors are true. God, they’re true. You’re an animal, jiju. No wonder she had to find you a second wife.”
He fucked her with the relentless drive she had provoked, her words fueling him. He was a legend made flesh, pounding into the living proof of his own reputation. When he came, it was with a force that shuddered through both of them, a silent, violent roar into the night.
He left her room before dawn, slipping back into the silent house. As he passed the main hall, he saw a shadow detach itself from the doorway. Nurjahan. She stood in her nightgown, her arms crossed. She said nothing. She didn’t need to. The satisfaction on his face, the scent of another woman on his skin, the entire silent narrative of the night—it was all confirmation.
The next morning, Shabnam left after a polite, breezy breakfast. The rumor mill, fed by the hired musicians and the household staff who saw Prem’s pre-dawn return, went into overdrive. The story was now cemented, embellished, and widely accepted: Prem had an insatiable sexual drive, a cock that could tame sisters, and a magnetism so potent he first lured the elder, then the younger, and now even their beautiful, talented friends were not safe. Prem, listening to a watered-down version from a smirking supplier that afternoon, merely shrugged. Internally, he felt proud. The house he had built was no longer just a home; it was his temple, and his reputation was the scripture.
The house he had built was no longer just a home; it was his temple, and his reputation was the scripture. This scripture, however, had unexpected readers. The whispers about his prowess, the saga of the two sisters, seeped past town boundaries and reached the modest apartment where Nur’s youngest sister, Naaz, lived with their parents. She consumed these stories, her imagination painting vivid, thrilling pictures. Where her mother Zydeida heard cautionary tales, Naaz heard epic poetry.
She arrived for a weekend visit, a storm of youthful energy in skinny jeans and a tight kurta. Her eyes, a lighter brown than her sisters’, missed nothing. She saw Zarina’s new confidence, the way she now gave soft orders to the cook. She saw Nur’s weighted grace, the aura of a woman managing a complex kingdom. And she saw Jiju. Prem, shirt sleeves rolled over his forearms, discussing a land deal on the phone, his voice a rumble of absolute authority. Her stomach performed a slow, warm flip.
“You’ve put on weight, Jiju,” she announced boldly at lunch, popping a piece of pickle into her mouth. “It suits you. More… solid.”
Prem glanced up, chewing slowly. Naaz had Nur’s bone structure but Zarina’s mischievous glint, amplified. She was all forwardness, a stark contrast to Zarina’s initial reticence. “City food,” he grunted, dismissing her, but his gaze lingered a second too long on the line of her neck.
“She’s just young and talks nonsense,” Zydeida said quickly, her old fear flashing. She remembered trying to keep Zarina away years ago, a failed campaign. Now this one, even more headstrong, was throwing herself into the line of fire. “Naaz, help me in the kitchen.”
Naaz sighed dramatically but obeyed, casting a last, laughing look over her shoulder at Prem. The look was a hook, subtle and sharp. He felt it tug in his gut. The attraction was immediate, a fresh, dangerous current. He deliberately turned to Zarina, asking her about the gardener’s bill, a mundane chore to anchor himself.
Later, he found Naaz alone in the garden, sprawled on the weathered bench under the oak. She was scrolling through her phone, one leg swinging. “This place is like a beautiful prison, no?” she said without looking up. “All this space, and nowhere to go.”
“Your sisters don’t seem to feel imprisoned,” he replied, stopping a few feet away, hands in his pockets.
“They have… duties.” She finally looked at him, the screen glow lighting her sly smile. “I just have boredom. And you have all the keys, Jiju. Must be a power trip. Luring Apa first, then Zarina apa. A family project.” Her tone was playful, but the words were razor-edged, testing the limits of the gossip.
Prem felt a spike of irritation mixed with raw desire. Her audacity was a flame. “Be careful what you read in cheap magazines,” he said, his voice low. “Stories get twisted.”
“Are they twisted?” She stood, closing the distance between them to a provocative foot. She smelled of candy and rebellion. “Or are they just the truth, polished a little?” She reached out and brushed a nonexistent leaf from his shoulder, her fingers grazing the cotton of his shirt. The contact was electric, deliberate. He caught her wrist, not hard, but firmly.
“Go help your mother,” he said, releasing her as if her skin burned.
He walked away, his blood humming. He wanted to bend her over that sun-warmed bench, teach her the price of her teasing. But the geometry was wrong. Two wives were a system; a third was chaos. A third sister was a conquest that would break the carefully maintained narrative, turning him from a powerful legend into a reckless glutton in the eyes of the town, and more importantly, in Nur’s eyes. He went to his study and poured a whiskey, swallowing it neat to drown the itch.
The tension simmered for days. Naaz’s presence was a constant, low-grade provocation. She wore her most flattering clothes, laughed too loudly at his rare jokes, always finding reasons to be in the same room. During a family card game, her foot ‘accidentally’ brushed his calf under the table. He moved his leg away, a silent rebuke that felt like a surrender.
Her breaking point was trivial. Nur and Zarina returned from a shopping trip, parcels in hand. Naaz watched them unpack: a silk sari for Nur, a delicate gold bracelet for Zarina. “Another gift, Zarina apa?” Naaz’s voice was sweetly acidic. “Jiju must keep your jewellery box very heavy.” She turned her full, wounded gaze on Prem. “And for me? Nothing? Not even a chocolate? I’m not family enough for gifts?”
The room stiffened. Zarina looked down, suddenly ashamed of her bracelet. Nur’s eyes narrowed, calculating. Prem leaned back in his armchair, the leather creaking. Naaz’s jealousy was naked now, a petulant, dangerous thing.
“You want a gift?” Prem’s voice was calm, too calm. He pulled his wallet from his pocket, extracted a thick wad of notes. He didn’t hand it to Naaz. He held it out to Nur. “Here. Take your sister shopping tomorrow. Buy her whatever her heart desires. Giggles, clothes, nonsense. On my behalf.”
The action was a masterstroke. It denied Naaz the intimate symbolism of a direct gift from him. It placed Nur firmly as the gatekeeper, the provider, the elder sister in control. It publicly framed his generosity as detached, familial duty, not personal interest.
Naaz’s face fell, the petulance crumbling into genuine hurt. She’d been publicly outmaneuvered, paid off like a distant relative. “I don’t want your money through her,” she mumbled, but the protest was weak.
“Take it, Naaz,” Nur said, her voice firm, closing her fingers around the cash. “Jiju is being kind. Don’t be rude.”
Later, in their bedroom, Nur approached Prem as he undressed. She took his shirt from him, her fingers smoothing the fabric. “That was… well handled,” she said quietly. “With Naaz. The money.”
He grunted, looking at her reflection in the mirror. “She’s a child playing with matches.”
“She’s not a child.” Nur came behind him, wrapping her arms around his bare torso, resting her cheek against the dense hair of his back. She felt the solid wall of him, the contained power. “She wants what we have. And you… you wanted to give it to her. I saw it in your eyes.”
He didn’t deny it. His silence was confirmation.
“But you didn’t,” she whispered, her voice thick with an emotion she couldn’t name—gratitude, pride, a fierce, twisted love. “You gave the money to me. You kept the distance.” She turned him around, her hands on his chest. “You’re learning to manage this. This life we’ve made.”
She kissed him then, not with desperate hunger, but with a profound, claiming gratitude. He responded, his hands gripping her hips, but his mind was elsewhere. He was thinking of Naaz’s wounded eyes, the flash of her ankle, the dangerous allure of a fire he had chosen not to light.
He let Nur lead him to bed, let her celebrate his restraint as a victory. As she moved above him, her voluptuous body outlined in the moonlight, he closed his eyes. Behind his eyelids, he wasn’t managing anything. He was cataloguing. Nur’s grateful possession, Zarina’s learned ardour, Shabnam’s expert worship, and now Naaz’s forbidden, sparkling resentment. Each was a different flavour, a distinct texture of submission and challenge. The temple had many altars, and his scripture was still being written, one suppressed desire, one strategically denied gift, at a time. The power was not just in the taking, he was realizing. It was in the deliberate, chosen refrain.
It was in the deliberate, chosen refrain. For days after the money incident, Naaz smoldered. Her attempts at provocation grew more reckless, a silent challenge to his dismissal. She took to wearing only a thin, worn-out kurti over her jeans in the evenings, one she knew became nearly translucent under the strong hall lights, her silhouette clearly visible as she stretched on the divan. She’d sigh dramatically, arching her back, a performance for an audience of one.
“This house is so dull in the evenings,” she announced one night, the words aimed at Prem who was reviewing documents. “No music. No fun. Just… silence and paperwork. Don’t you ever get bored, Jiju? With all this… quiet duty?” Her gaze swept pointedly over Nur, who was mending a child’s shirt, and Zarina, reading a magazine.
Prem didn’t look up. “Boredom is a luxury of the idle. Find a hobby.”
“I have a hobby,” Naaz shot back, her voice sharp. “Studying people. You’re the most interesting subject here.” This finally made him lift his eyes. Their stare held, a current of pure, undisguised electricity snapping between them. Nur’s needle paused. Zarina’s page remained unturned. The air thickened, charged with the unsaid thing: she was not backing down.
He broke the gaze first, returning to his papers, but his jaw was tight. The restraint was costing him. That night, in Nur’s bed, his lovemaking was distracted, his mind clearly elsewhere. Afterward, as they lay in the dark, he spoke to the ceiling. “She needs to go. Naaz. She’s a lit fuse in a room full of petrol.”
Nur was silent for a long moment, absorbing the victory and the problem. “She won’t go. My mother will plead. She’ll say we’re casting her out. It will cause a scene, feed the gossip worse.” She turned onto her side, facing his profile. “We need a better solution. A… graceful exit.”
“An exit to where?” he grunted, irritation fraying his voice.
“You gave her money for trinkets,” Nur whispered, her mind working visibly in the dim light. “Give her something bigger. Something she can’t refuse, but that takes her far from here.” She propped herself up on an elbow. “Fund her MBA. Abroad. London, maybe. You can easily afford it. Present it to my parents as a grand gesture, securing her future since a suitable match here is… complicated now. They’ll be grateful. She’ll be furious. But she’ll go. What twenty-five-year-old turns down London?”
Prem considered it. It was elegant, a move that looked like magnanimity but was truly strategic exile. It would burn a significant sum, but it was cheaper than the chaos a third sister-wife would unleash. It also played perfectly into the narrative he was learning to cultivate: the powerful patriarch, providing, always providing, even at the expense of his own desires. “You’ll propose it,” he stated. “To your parents. It comes from you, the concerned elder sister. I just sign the cheques.”
The proposal was made the following Sunday over lunch. Zydeida wept with grateful shock. Her husband, a man of few words, gripped Prem’s hand, his eyes shiny. “You are a true son to us. After everything… you do this for our foolish girl’s future.” The irony was a metallic taste in Prem’s mouth.
Naaz’s reaction was volcanic. “You’re sending me away!” she screamed, first at Nur, then at Prem. “This isn’t generosity, this is banishment! Because you’re scared! Because you can’t handle–”
“Handle what?” Nur’s voice cut through, cold and final. “Handle your childish infatuation? Your disrespect in my home? This is a lifeline, Naaz. Grab it with some grace, or sink here in your own melodrama. Your choice.”
The fight left Naaz then, replaced by a cold, defeated hatred. She accepted the offer with sullen silence, the paperwork a prison sentence. The weeks before her departure were glacial. She packed slowly, her presence now a bitter ghost haunting the halls. The night before her flight, she cornered Prem alone in the garden, her face pale in the moonlight.
“You want me gone,” she said, her voice trembling not with sadness but rage. “Fine. But know this. I saw you. I saw you want it. You’re a coward, Jiju. A rich, powerful coward. You lure women in but only keep the ones who cage themselves for you.” She stepped closer, her perfume a defiant cloud. “I would have been fire. And you chose to pour money on me instead.”
He looked down at her, at the furious, youthful beauty that had so tempted him. For a fleeting second, he imagined pulling her into the shadow of the oak, giving her the truth of his masculinity she craved, a final, devastating goodbye. He let the fantasy play out, felt the corresponding ache in his groin. Then he let it fade.
“Goodbye, Naaz,” he said, turning his back on her, walking towards the lit windows of the house where his two wives waited.
Her departure was a quiet relief wrapped in familial performatives. The gossip, however, exploded with renewed, intricate vigour. The official story of funded studies was too clean, too pat. The town, addicted to the ongoing saga of Prem’s household, fashioned a juicier truth.
It slithered through kitty parties and market stalls: Prem had tried to add the third sister to his collection, of course he had. His legendary appetite was insatiable. He’d trapped her, seduced her with that powerful, masculine presence, just as he had the others. But Nurjahan, the first wife, the real power behind the throne, had put her foot down. She’d packed the girl off to London, buying her silence with a degree, removing the competition. “He’s a stallion, that one,” the whispers went, “but even a stallion needs a firm hand on the reins. Nur didi holds those reins. She allowed the second, but a third? She’s not running a hostel.”
Prem heard these rumors from his business partner, Rakesh, who recounted them with a mix of awe and amusement. “They say you’re like a Mughal emperor, yaar, and your Begum Sahiba manages your harem with an iron fist! ‘Another sister? Off to England with you!’ Brilliant!” Prem merely swirled his whiskey, a slow, acknowledging smile touching his lips. The legend had evolved again. He was not just a man of voracious sexual power, but one whose power was wisely managed, his conquests curated. It made him seem more formidable, not less. The refrain had become part of the song.
That night, he summoned both women to his study. The amber lamp light carved their features, Nur regal and watchful, Zarina pliant and curious. He didn’t speak of Naaz or the rumors. He poured three glasses of a rich, single malt. He handed one to each.
“To the house,” he said, his voice a low vibration in the cedar-scented room. He looked from one to the other, his gaze holding the weight of their shared, complicated truth. He saw Nur’s satisfaction, deep and hard-won. He saw Zarina’s flicker of triumph at being included in this inner sanctum toast. He let the silence stretch, thick with the unsaid histories and the manufactured myths that now bound them.
Then he drained his glass, the warm burn tracing down to his core, a testament to the empire of their own making.