Chapter 1: Sneha enjoys being groped in public
The air in the market was a solid thing, thick with the smell of frying samosas, diesel fumes, and the sweet, overripe scent of mangoes. Sneha moved through the late afternoon crowd with a sway in her hips that was less an invitation and more a simple fact of her anatomy. Her strawberry-printed kurti, a bit tighter than was strictly traditional, strained across her chest and caught on the curve of her waist.
A man carrying a tower of cardboard boxes brushed past her, his forearm pressing firmly, deliberately, into the side of her breast. He didn’t break stride, disappearing into the throng. Sneha’s lips twitched. She adjusted the strap of her woven jute bag and kept walking.
“You see that?” Rohan muttered, his hand tightening around hers. His palm was slick with sweat.
“See what?” she said, her voice light. She stopped at a stall, fingering a stack of embroidered cushion covers. The vendor, an older man with kind eyes, gave her a polite smile. A younger man beside him, however, let his gaze linger, travelling slowly from her face down to her hips. Sneha turned, presenting her back to him as she examined a different fabric. The action made her denim shorts, already snug, tighten across her rear.
A sharp, stinging slap landed on her backside.
It wasn’t painful, just a startling, possessive crack of sound swallowed by the market’s din. She jolted forward a step. A laborer in a grimy vest sidled past, his calloused hand leaving a ghost of heat on her skin. He didn’t look back.
Rohan saw it all. His whole body went rigid. “Hey!” he shouted, dropping her hand and stepping forward. The laborer was already absorbed by the river of people. Rohan turned back to Sneha, his face a mask of anger and humiliation. “Did he just…? Why didn’t you say anything?”
Sneha smoothed her kurti over her shorts, a slow, deliberate motion. A faint, almost imperceptible smile played on her lips. “Say what, Rohan? It’s a crowd. These things happen.”
“These things happen?” he echoed, his voice low and strained. He leaned closer, the spice of his aftershave mixing unpleasantly with the market smells. “He spanked you. Like you were… like he had a right.”
She finally looked at him, her dark eyes wide and unbothered. “It’s just a bit of fun. It doesn’t mean anything.” She reached out and traced a finger down the front of his polo shirt, feeling the rapid thump of his heart beneath the cotton. “Does it bother you that much? Seeing that they look?”
He caught her wrist, not hard, but firmly. “It’s not looking. It’s touching. It’s disrespect.”
“Maybe I don’t mind being disrespected a little,” she whispered, leaning in so her breath warmed his ear. “Maybe I like knowing they want what you have.”
She pulled back, watching the conflict storm in his eyes—the fury, the possessiveness, the undeniable, shameful thrill her words sparked. He was furious, yes, but his gaze dropped to her mouth, and she saw the flush creeping up his neck. He was turned on. By the insult, by her reaction, by the whole ugly, thrilling mess of it.
He released her wrist as if burned. “That’s sick, Sneha.”
“Is it?” She shrugged, turning to walk again, her hips finding their rhythm. “It’s just a body. It’s just a bit of attention. Don’t make it so serious.”
They walked in taut silence for a few minutes, the earlier ease shattered. He was a step behind her, a brooding shadow. She felt the glances like physical touches now, hyper-aware of them because he was. A boy on a bicycle whistled as he weaved past, his eyes glued to her chest. A group of men outside a tea stall fell quiet as she walked by, their conversation dying into a hungry silence.
Each time, Rohan’s tension spiked. She could feel it radiating off him, a sour heat. It was fascinating, this power. The market’s hands on her skin, and her simple dismissal of it, were coils of a rope she could twist around him without even trying.
Her phone buzzed in her bag. She dug it out, smiling at the screen. “It’s Anya,” she said, as if offering a peace offering.
“Tell her I say hi,” Rohan said, his tone flat.
Sneha answered, putting the phone to her ear. “Hey, you.”
“Where are you? It sounds like a war zone,” Anya’s voice crackled, bright and clear.
“Just at the Sunday market with Rohan.”
“Uh-oh. How many heart attacks has he had?”
Sneha laughed, a genuine, sparkling sound that made Rohan glare at the ground. “Just one or two. The usual.”
“The usual groping or the usual spanking?” Anya asked, blunt as always.
Sneha turned slightly away from Rohan, lowering her voice a fraction. “A bit of both today, actually. A dedicated effort.”
“And our Prince Charming?”
“Fuming. And… other things.”
Anya snorted. “Of course he is. He’s a conflicted little cookie. Listen, do you want to meet later? I’m editing that bridal shoot and I need a break from sequins.”
“Maybe. Let me calm the beast down first.” Sneha glanced over her shoulder. Rohan was staring intently at a pile of copper pots, his jaw working.
“Just remember what we talked about, Sneha. You either own it completely, or you shut it down. This middle ground you’re playing in? It’s just mud. You’re gonna get stuck.”
“I’m not stuck. I’m having fun.”
“Are you?” Anya paused. “Or are you just proving a point to someone who’s never going to get it?”
The call left a quiet hum in Sneha’s ear after she hung up. Anya’s question echoed, mixing with the vendor’s cries and the blare of a scooter horn. She slipped the phone back into her bag, the cool glass of the screen a sharp contrast to the sticky heat of her skin.
Rohan was waiting, a statue of resentment by a pyramid of saffron-colored powder. “Good talk?” he asked, the words brittle.
“Always.” She walked up to him, closing the distance. She placed a hand on his chest again, feeling the stubborn, rapid beat. “Don’t be so tense. It’s just a crowded market.”
He looked down at her hand, then into her eyes. The desire in his look was raw now, stripped of its earlier anger, tangled up with pure frustration. “It’s not the market, Sneha. It’s you. You walk through here like… like you’re offering a taste test. And then you tell me I shouldn’t mind when people take a bite.”
She rose on her toes, bringing her lips close to his. “But you’re the one who gets the whole meal, Rohan,” she murmured, her voice a low, confident purr. “Doesn’t that mean more?”
He didn’t answer. He just stared at her mouth, his own lips parted, breathing hard in the dusty, fragrant air. The market swirled around them—a riot of color and noise and grasping, anonymous hands. And in the middle of it, they were perfectly, dangerously still, connected only by her touch and by a thing they couldn’t name, a thing that felt equal parts like desire and ruin.