Chapter 11: Anj carries a furniture of Rohan's sitting on it. This makes him blush. She kisses him and gentlycarries him to bed and pounds him hard like never before
The morning light was different. It didn’t just illuminate the room; it seemed to reveal it anew, painting the plain walls in shades of gold and highlighting the dust motes dancing in the air. Anjali woke first, her body thrumming with a deep, satisfied ache. Rohan was curled towards her, his breathing even, one hand resting lightly on her hip as if even in sleep he needed to confirm she was real.
She watched him, tracing the soft lines of his face with her eyes. The timid engineer who’d met her at the train station was still there, but layered now with the man who’d gasped her name into the dark. She smiled, a private, fierce thing.
He stirred, blinking awake. For a second, disorientation flickered in his eyes, then memory flooded in, turning them warm. “Hey,” he rasped.
“Hey.” Her voice was low, rough with sleep.
They lay in silence for a while, listening to the distant hum of the city waking up. The previous night was a tangible presence in the room—the shifted sheets, the charged quiet, the way their bodies seemed to fit together without trying.
“I’m starving,” Anjali announced suddenly, the domesticity of the statement feeling strangely bold.
Rohan laughed, a genuine, unguarded sound. “Me too. I think we… skipped dinner.”
She swung her legs out of bed, the cool floor a shock against her bare feet. She stood, stretching her arms overhead, her back popping. She felt powerful, loose. Rohan watched her, propped up on his elbows, his gaze openly appreciative.
Her eyes scanned the room, landing on the sturdy wooden dressing table his mother had gifted them. It was old, solid teak, with a heavy mirror. The kind of piece meant to last generations.
A thought, impulsive and irresistible, took hold.
“Come here,” she said, turning to him.
“What?”
“Just come here. Sit.” She pointed to the flat top of the dressing table.
A slow, bewildered smile spread across his face. He got up, the sheet falling away, and padded over to her. He hoisted himself onto the furniture, the wood creaking in protest under his weight. He sat there, legs dangling, looking utterly perplexed and completely willing. “Okay. I’m sitting. Is this a new morning ritual?”
Instead of answering, she moved behind him, catching his eye in the mirror. Her expression was one of pure, focused mischief. She bent her knees, wrapped her arms around the base of the heavy cabinet, and took a breath.
“Anjali, what are you—”
She lifted.
Her muscles, trained on concrete blocks and rusted barbells, corded. The wood groaned. The whole thing, with Rohan on top, came off the ground. Two inches, four, six. She held it, her breath steady, her biceps trembling not from strain but from the sheer, ridiculous thrill of it. Rohan’s reflection in the mirror was a picture of stunned disbelief. He gripped the edges of the table, his knuckles white, but he wasn’t afraid. He was awestruck.
“You’re… you’re carrying it,” he whispered. “You’re carrying the furniture. With me on it.”
She managed a grunt that was almost a laugh. “You’re… not… that heavy.” She lowered it back down with a controlled thud that vibrated through the floorboards.
She slumped against his back, her forehead between his shoulder blades, breathless with giggles now. He twisted, pulling her around to face him, his hands on her hips. His eyes were shining.
“You’re insane,” he said, pulling her into a kiss that tasted like morning and wonder. “Absolutely, magnificently insane.”
“I wanted to see if I could,” she mumbled against his lips.
“You can. You clearly can.” He shook his head, laughing into her hair. “My wife, the furniture mover.”
The word ‘wife’ hung in the air between them. It didn’t feel like a chain anymore. It felt like a fact, a discovery.
The moment was broken by the loud growl of Rohan’s stomach. They both burst out laughing, the tension and wonder dissolving into easy, shared hilarity.
“Okay, okay,” he said, sliding off the table. “I’m making pancakes. Proper, city-boy pancakes. With chocolate chips.”
“From a box?”
“From a box. It’s a modern marvel.”
As he headed for the kitchen, Anjali lingered in the bedroom. She ran her hand over the smooth teak of the dressing table. She had carried it. She had carried him. The metaphor was so obvious it was clumsy, but in her bones, it felt true. She wasn’t just bearing the weight of expectations anymore. She was choosing what to lift, what to hold.
From the kitchen, she heard the clatter of a bowl, the whistle of a kettle, Rohan humming a tuneless Bollywood song. The sounds of a life being built, not inherited. She walked out of the room, following the noise, following the smell of coffee and possibility. The city sprawled outside their window, vast and intimidating, but for the first time, it felt less like a maze and more like a gymnasium—full of heavy, wonderful things just waiting for her to get a grip.
The city sprawled outside their window, vast and intimidating, but for the first time, it felt less like a maze and more like a gymnasium—full of heavy, wonderful things just waiting for her to get a grip.
The day passed in a blur of chocolate-chip pancakes and shared silence, the easy kind that didn’t need filling. Rohan disappeared into the small home office nook for work, his typing a steady, distant rhythm. Anjali explored the apartment, her fingers tracing the spines of his programming textbooks, the smooth surface of the induction cooktop. She did push-ups on the living room floor until her arms burned, just because she could.
When the key turned in the lock that evening, the sound was familiar. Rohan shuffled in, looking softened at the edges. He dropped his backpack by the door with a sigh that seemed to deflate his whole frame. “Three back-to-back sprint planning sessions,” he mumbled, already pulling his phone from his pocket. “My brain is jQuery soup.”
“Sit,” Anjali said, pointing to the sofa.
“Can’t. Standup call in five. Gotta update the team.” He was scrolling, already half-dissolved into the digital realm of tickets and blockers. He leaned against the living room wall, phone to his ear, and began speaking in that other voice he used—professional, clear, slightly higher. “Hey team, yes, I’m here. Update from my side: the API integration is mostly stable, but I’m seeing some latency on the payment gateway call…”
His words became a technical murmur. Anjali watched him. The slight slump of his shoulders, the way he rubbed his temple with his free hand. This was his battlefield, this invisible architecture of code and complaints. She understood fatigue. She knew how to fix it.
She moved behind him silently, bare feet on the cool floor. She planted her feet wide, bending her knees into a perfect athletic stance. She slid her arms around his waist, interlocking her fingers just below his navel. He smelled of outside air and faint coffee.
He paused mid-sentence. “Uh… one sec, team.” He muted the phone, craning his neck to look at her. “What are you—”
She lifted.
It was cleaner than the dressing table lift. He was all compact, manageable weight. He let out a sharp, undignified squeak as his feet left the ground, his phone still clutched in his hand. She held him there, suspended against her chest, feeling the solid reality of him.
“Anjali!” he hissed, trying not to laugh.
“You’re on mute,” she whispered into his ear. Then she began.
A squat. Deep and controlled, her thighs parallel to the floor. She rose. The power in her legs was immense, volcanic. Down again. His weight was nothing, everything. Up.
On the third squat, he gave in. He unmuted the phone, his voice remarkably even, just a touch breathless. “Sorry about that. So, as I was saying, the latency issue… seems to be… resolving.” He bit his lip as she sank into another rep, her breath a warm huff against his neck. “I’ll… monitor it… tonight.”
She did five more. Each one was a statement. Each rise was a victory over the miles that had separated their worlds. He was limp in her arms, his head lolling back onto her shoulder, a silent, shaking laughter wracking his body. She could feel the vibration of it through his ribs.
She set him down gently, her own breath coming in deep pulls. He turned, his face alight with pure, unadulterated joy. He forgot to unmute his phone.
“You,” he said, pointing a finger at her, his voice a thrilled whisper, “are a menace. A glorious, terrifying menace.”
From the phone on the floor, a tinny voice called out, “Rohan? You still there? Is everything okay?”
He snatched it up, his cheeks flushed. “Everything’s perfect! Better than perfect. Signing off!” He ended the call and tossed the phone onto the sofa. It bounced once, then was still.
He looked at her, his chest rising and falling. The office fatigue was gone, burned away by adrenaline and wonder. In its place was a bright, fierce recognition. They were not following any script they’d been given. They were writing their own, one rep, one laugh, one mute button at a time.
They were writing their own, one rep, one laugh, one mute button at a time.
The silence after the disconnected call was a living thing, filled with their shared breath and the fading thrill of the lift. Rohan’s gaze traveled from her smiling face down the solid line of her arm, where the muscle still stood in a defined ridge. He reached out, his fingers hovering for a second before making contact.
His touch was tentative, a soft press against the hard curve of her bicep. He traced the shape of it, his fingertips pale and gentle against her sun-warmed skin. The contrast was profound, his soft arm meeting her forged strength.
“It’s like granite,” he murmured, more to himself than to her. “Warm granite.”
She flexed, ever so slightly, and the muscle shifted and hardened under his hand. He watched, fascinated, as the landscape of her arm changed with the slightest movement. He used both hands then, one on each arm, exploring the dense reality of her.
His own arms, where they brushed against hers, were pale and yielding. There was no definition there, just the pleasant softness of a life spent in thought, not labor. He didn’t shy from the comparison; he leaned into it, letting his forearm rest against hers, a study in opposites.
“I never really touched muscles before,” he said, his voice low. “I mean, not like this. On purpose. It’s incredible.”
Anjali watched his face, saw the genuine curiosity there, devoid of any insecurity. “Yours are incredible too,” she said, turning her hand over to run her palm along the inside of his forearm. “So soft. I like it.”
He laughed, a quiet puff of air. “They’re useless.”
“No.” She caught his hand, lacing her calloused fingers with his. “They build worlds I can’t even see. They held a phone while you were suspended in mid-air. That’s not useless.”
He brought their joined hands up, kissing her knuckles, then the prominent vein on her forearm. His lips were soft, his actions speaking a language he was still learning. The playfulness had burned away, leaving something more vulnerable in its wake.
He guided her hand to his own bicep, letting her feel the lack of what she possessed. “See?”
“I see you,” she said simply, and meant it.
The last of the sunset bled away, leaving the room in deep blue shadow. The city lights blinked on, one by one, casting a grid of distant, artificial stars. They stood there, by the wall where she’d pinned him days before, now just holding and being held.
“I’m really glad they sent me you,” he said into the quiet.
Anjali rested her forehead against his. The words from her village, the warnings about modesty and duty, were a faint, fading echo. Here, now, her strength was not something to hide. It was something to share, a gift he received not with fear, but with wonder.
“Me too,” she whispered. “Now, about those pancakes you promised this morning. I’m thinking a second dinner.”
He groaned, but his eyes crinkled with delight. “You’re going to eat me out of house and home, aren’t you?”
“Only if the home is stocked with chocolate chips,” she said, releasing him and heading for the kitchen, the promise of sweetness hanging in the air between them, as tangible as the memory of his hands on her skin.