Chapter 11: The Washroom Game Begins
The lock clicked.
Not the soft, uncertain click of the door closing earlier. This was different. This was final. This was Reshma's fingers twisting the small metal knob with deliberate, unhurried certainty, the sound cutting through the rattle of the train like a knife through silk.
She turned.
The saree had shifted. Sometime in the last thirty seconds—during the whispered words, during the press of bodies, during the moment when Balwant's ancient hands had found her waist—the fabric had loosened. The pallu hung loose over her left shoulder, threatening to slip. The waistline had dropped, just an inch, maybe two, but enough.
Enough to expose the full curve of her navel. The soft hollow of her stomach. The beginning of the V that disappeared beneath the fabric.
The fluorescent light flickered. Caught the sheen of sweat on her skin. Made everything look like a dream, a hallucination, a moment that couldn't possibly be real.
But it was real. The heat in the washroom was real. The smell of her—soap and perfume and something deeper, muskier—was real. The way my heart was slamming against my ribs, the way Balwant's breath had gone shallow and quick beside me, the way the train rocked beneath our feet—all of it was real.
"Ab rule set karte hain," Reshma said.
Her voice was soft. Almost gentle. The voice of a teacher explaining something simple to slow students.
But her eyes were anything but gentle. They moved between us—from Balwant to me, from me to Balwant—and in them I saw something that made my throat tight and my palms sweat and my brain short-circuit in ways I couldn't begin to process.
She reached for the shelf above the sink.
The black lace was still there. Still crumpled. Still carrying the memory of her body in its thin, damp fabric. She picked it up. Held it between two fingers. Let it dangle in the flickering light like a flag, a prize, a promise.
"Yeh," she said, "abhi yahan rahegi."
This stays here for now.
She placed it on the edge of the sink. Carefully. Deliberately. The lace draped over the white porcelain like a secret.
"Donon ko ek ek minute milega," she continued. "Jo mujhe moan karwa payega, woh yeh le jayega. Poori journey ke liye."
You each get one minute. Whoever makes me moan gets to keep it. For the whole journey.
Balwant laughed. That dry, raspy laugh that seemed to come from somewhere deep in his chest.
"Ek minute?" he said. "Beta, mujhe ek minute mein bahut kuch kar sakta hoon."
One minute? I can do a lot in one minute.
Reshma smiled. Not the wide, calculated smile from before. This was smaller. More private. Almost affectionate.
"Toh phir dikhao," she said.
Then show me.
She looked at me. Her eyes were dark, unreadable, but there was something in them—a question, maybe, or a challenge, or both.
"Tum pehle dekhoge," she said. "Phir tumhari baari."
You watch first. Then it's your turn.
I didn't trust myself to speak.
Balwant stepped forward.
His movement was slow. Careful. The movement of a man who had learned, over ninety years, that every step could be his last. But there was nothing hesitant in him. Nothing uncertain. His eyes were fixed on Reshma with an intensity that made me feel like I was intruding on something private.
His hands found her waist.
Those ancient hands. Gnarled. Spotted. Trembling slightly—from age or desire, I couldn't tell. They settled on the bare skin just above her hips, where the saree had slipped, and for a moment, he just held her. Felt her. His thumbs traced slow circles on her skin, and I watched Reshma's breath catch.
Then he leaned in.
His mouth found her ear. His lips moved. And whatever he said, I couldn't hear it. The words were swallowed by the train, by the distance, by the intimacy of the moment.
But I saw her reaction.
Her eyes widened. Just slightly. Her lips parted. Her chest rose and fell, rose and fell, faster than before. Her hands gripped the edge of the sink behind her, knuckles going white.
Balwant's lips moved again.
Reshma gasped.
It was a small sound. Barely audible. But in the tiny washroom, with the three of us pressed together like sardines, it might as well have been a scream.
Balwant smiled against her ear.
"Ek minute," he murmured. "Bahut hota hai."
One minute is a lot.
He stepped back.
Reshma stood there. Her chest heaving. Her eyes slightly glazed. The pallu had slipped further, exposing more of her shoulder, more of her collarbone, more of the curve of her breast.
She looked at me.
"Tumhari baari," she said.
Your turn.
I didn't move.
My feet were rooted to the floor. My hands were frozen at my sides. My brain was screaming at me—this is Rohan's mother, this is wrong, this is insane—but my body wasn't listening.
Reshma reached out.
Her fingers closed around my wrist. Warm. Firm. Certain. She pulled me toward her, and I went because I had no choice, because my legs had stopped belonging to me, because the space between us had disappeared and there was nowhere else to go.
"Yahan," she whispered.
She pressed my palm flat against her stomach.
The skin was warm. Hot, almost. Feverish. And beneath my hand, I felt it—the rapid flutter of her pulse, the slight quiver of muscle, the way her breath moved through her body like a wave.
"Dekho," she said.
Look.
Her navel was right there. An inch from my thumb. A small, perfect hollow, shadowed in the flickering light. I could see the sweat gathering there. Could smell her—the deep, musky scent of her skin mixed with perfume and something else, something that made my mouth go dry.
"Kaise kaanp rahi hoon," she murmured.
How I'm trembling.
She was. I could feel it. The slight tremor that ran through her body, transmitted through my palm like an electric current. Her stomach quivered. Her hips shifted. Her breath came in short, shallow gasps that fogged the air between us.
And then the train lurched.
It was sudden. Violent. The kind of jolt that happened when the tracks changed, when the engine pulled, when the laws of physics decided to remind everyone on board that they were moving through space at eighty kilometers an hour.
The washroom shook.
I lost my balance.
Reshma lost hers.
We fell together.
Not gracefully. Not slowly. We crashed—my body slamming into hers, her back hitting the sink, her hands flying up to grab my shoulders. I felt her breasts press against my chest. Felt her hips align with mine. Felt every inch of her body against every inch of mine, separated by nothing but the thin fabric of her saree and the even thinner fabric of my jeans.
And Balwant.
His hand was there. Somehow. Sliding down the front of her saree, his ancient fingers finding the loosened fabric, pushing it aside, seeking the skin beneath. His body was pressed against her back, his breath hot on her neck, his other hand gripping her hip like a man holding onto a life raft.
The game dissolved.
There were no rules anymore. No minute counters. No prizes. Just three bodies in a tiny space, moving together, breathing together, lost in something none of us had planned and none of us could stop.
My fingers found her back folds.
Those soft, warm creases just above her waist, where her skin was slick with sweat, where the fabric of her saree had bunched and twisted. I dug in—not roughly, but not gently either—and she moaned.
A real moan. Not the controlled, calculated sound from before. This was raw. Honest. The sound of a woman losing control, of a body responding, of a moment that had stripped away every layer of pretense and left nothing but need.
Balwant heard it.
His hand slid lower.
Reshma gasped.
Her head fell back against his shoulder. Her eyes closed. Her mouth opened, and she didn't say anything—just breathed, just felt, just existed in the space between us.
The train rattled on.
The mirror fogged.
And somewhere in the distance, the mountains of Kashmir waited.