Chapter 10: The Drooling Shopkeeper
The morning came slow and yellow through the slatted windows, and Purshottam Sharma had not slept.
He had lain on his back for hours, staring at the ceiling fan that did not work, listening to the geckos click in the corners. The lace was still in his kurta pocket. He had not moved it. He had not dared. Every time he shifted, the fabric rustled against his chest like a secret trying to escape.
At some point before dawn, he had risen and made tea. He had drunk it standing at the kitchen window, watching the sky turn from black to purple to a pale, watery orange. The tulsi plant in his courtyard was dry. He had forgotten to water it the night before.
He watered it now, tipping the steel lota slowly, watching the water darken the soil around the roots.
Six o'clock. She had said six o'clock.
He did not know what he would say to her. He did not know what she would say to him. He only knew that he had her undergarments in his pocket and the taste of jasmine in his mouth and a hunger in his belly that had nothing to do with food.
He went back inside. He sat on his bed. He waited.
Three houses down, Ruby Dixit was just waking up.
She stretched in the wide, soft bed, her toes curling against the sheets. Manoj had left for work an hour ago—she had heard him moving around, heard the click of the bathroom door, heard him call out a goodbye that she had answered with a sleepy murmur.
Now the house was hers. The morning was hers.
She lay still for a moment, feeling the weight of her breasts against her ribs, the warmth of her own skin. She had slept without a nightgown. She had slept without anything at all. The sheets had felt cool and smooth against her bare body, and she had dreamed of something she could not quite remember—something warm and close and full of breath.
She smiled at the ceiling.
Then she got up.
She did not bother with a bra. She did not bother with panties. She pulled on a thin cotton saree—pale yellow, the color of lemon sherbet—and wrapped it around her hips, tucking the pallu loosely over her shoulder. The fabric was old and soft, washed a hundred times, and it clung to her body like a second skin.
She looked at herself in the mirror.
Her nipples were visible through the thin cotton. Dark and unmistakable, two small points pressing against the pale yellow cloth. The curve of her breasts was clearly outlined—every swell, every shadow.
She did not adjust the saree. She did not reach for a blouse with thicker fabric. She did not pin the pallu more securely.
She simply looked at herself, and smiled, and walked out the door.
The lane was already busy. The vegetable cart was making its rounds, the vendor calling out in his singsong voice. A group of children were playing cricket with a stick and a tennis ball. The neighbor's dog was asleep in the middle of the road, and nobody was bothering to move it.
Ruby walked past all of it.
The sun was warm on her shoulders. The air smelled of dust and diesel and the marigolds that someone was stringing outside the temple. Her saree shifted with every step, the fabric brushing against her bare skin, and she felt every brush like a small electric shock.
She had forgotten to put on a bra. She had forgotten on purpose.
She had forgotten to put on panties too.
The knowledge of it made her feel weightless. Dangerous. She was walking through her own neighborhood, past people who had known her for years, and beneath the thin cotton of her saree she was completely, utterly naked.
Nobody knew. Nobody could tell. And that was the point.
She passed the chai wallah, who nodded at her. She passed the tailor, who was sitting outside his shop with a needle and thread. She passed two aunties who were gossiping by the water tap, and they looked at her and looked away, and she knew they were judging her saree, her navel, her boldness, and she did not care.
She did not care about any of them.
She cared about the man three doors down, who had her lingerie in his pocket, who had pressed it to his face in the dark and inhaled her scent.
She wondered if he had slept. She wondered if he had touched himself. She wondered if he was waiting for her now, watching the clock, counting the minutes until six.
She hoped so.
The corner shop appeared at the end of the lane, its faded sign creaking in the morning breeze. Sharma General Store. The bell above the door had been broken for years—it made a sound like a dying bird when it opened, more of a squawk than a jingle.
Ruby pushed the door open, and the bell squawked.
The shop was small and cramped, the shelves covered in old chunni cloth that had once been red but was now a dull, dusty pink. The air smelled of stale pakoras and old tea and the faint, sweet tang of jaggery.
Behind the counter sat Bansal, the shopkeeper. He was a middle-aged man with a paunch and a receding hairline and a mustache that he was inordinately proud of. He was reading a newspaper, his lips moving slightly as he scanned the words.
He looked up when the bell squawked.
"Ruby ji," he said, setting down the paper. "So early? What can I—"
She walked toward the counter. The saree shifted. His eyes dropped.
He stopped mid-sentence.
His mouth opened. Just slightly. Just enough. And then his eyes—his stupid, traitorous eyes—fixed on her chest, and they did not move.
Ruby knew what he was seeing. She knew exactly what he was seeing. The thin cotton of her saree had settled over her breasts like a veil, and beneath it, her nipples were standing out dark and hard and absolutely, unmistakably visible.
She had not meant for this to happen. Not with Bansal. He was a shopkeeper, not a target. But she had walked in without thinking, without checking, and now she was here, and he was staring, and the moment was stretching out like taffy.
His jaw was slack. His eyes were wide. And as Ruby watched, a thin line of saliva gathered at the corner of his mouth.
It trembled there for a moment, catching the light.
Then it dripped.
It fell from his lip onto the open ledger in front of him, landing with a small, wet splat on a column of numbers.
Bansal did not notice. He did not notice anything. He was too busy staring at her chest.
Ruby felt a laugh building in her throat. She swallowed it down, but a smile escaped—slow and knowing and utterly without shame.
She leaned forward. She placed both hands on the counter and leaned in, close enough that the scent of her perfume drifted across the space between them.
"Bhaiya," she said, her voice soft and sweet. "The sugar?"
Bansal blinked.
"The sugar," Ruby repeated. "I need a packet. Or would you like to keep looking?"
The words landed like a slap.
Bansal's face went through a rapid series of colors—pink, red, a deep, mortified purple. He jerked backward, his stool scraping against the floor, and his hand shot out blindly toward the shelf behind him.
He grabbed a packet. He did not look at it. He could not look at anything except her face, and even that seemed to be causing him physical pain.
"Y-yes," he stammered. "Sugar. Yes. Here. One kilo. Fifty rupees."
He held the packet out. His hand was shaking.
Ruby did not take it immediately. She let him stand there, his arm extended, his eyes darting everywhere except her chest, his breath coming in short, panicked gasps.
Then she reached out and took the packet. Her fingers brushed his.
"Thank you, bhaiya," she said.
She pulled a fifty-rupee note from the fold of her saree—she had to reach into the waist, had to lift the fabric just slightly, and she saw his eyes flicker down, following the movement, and then jerk away again.
She placed the note on the counter.
"Keep the change," she said.
Bansal opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
"Ruby ji," he managed. "I—that is—I did not mean to—"
She laughed. Soft and low and genuinely amused.
"Relax, bhaiya," she said. "No harm done."
She picked up the sugar packet and turned toward the door. She could feel his eyes on her back—on the curve of her hips, on the sway of her saree, on the small strip of bare skin where the pallu had slipped.
She paused at the door.
"Tell your wife I said hello," she said over her shoulder.
Then she walked out into the sunlight.
The bell squawked behind her.
Bansal stood frozen behind the counter. His hand was still extended, reaching for a note that was no longer there. His ledger was still open, the small wet spot from his drool slowly spreading across the numbers.
He looked down at it. He looked at the door. He looked at his own hands, which were gripping the counter now, gripping it like a drowning man gripping a piece of wood.
He should have been embarrassed. He should have been ashamed.
But all he could think about was the way her nipples had pressed against that yellow cotton. The way she had leaned over the counter, close enough to touch. The way she had smiled at him—not angry, not offended, just amused. Just knowing.
He sat down heavily on his stool.
He did not pick up his newspaper. He did not return to his ledger. He just sat there, staring at the door, waiting for his heart to stop pounding.
Outside, Ruby walked home with the sugar swinging from her fingers.
The sun was higher now, the heat beginning to build. The children had abandoned their cricket game and were sitting in the shade of a neem tree, drinking water from a clay pot. The dog had moved to a different patch of road.
Ruby smiled at them all.
She felt lighter than she had in years. Freer. She had walked into that shop expecting nothing, and she had walked out with something—something small and delicious and entirely hers.
She wondered what Purshottam was doing. She wondered if he was watching the clock. She wondered if he had touched the lace again, if he had held it to his face, if he had dreamed about her the way she had dreamed about him.
She hoped he had.
She reached her gate and pushed it open. The courtyard was quiet, the sun slanting across the stone floor. The tulsi plant in the corner was thriving—she watered it every morning, a habit she had picked up from her mother.
She thought of Purshottam's tulsi. She thought of him standing in his own courtyard, watering his own plant, waiting for six o'clock.
She went inside and set the sugar on the kitchen counter.
Then she went to her bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed, and she let herself think about what was going to happen tonight.
Six o'clock. Bring your complaints. I will bring the sugar.
She had said it as a joke. A dare. A test.
But now she wondered—what if he actually came?
What if he knocked on her door at six o'clock, his hands empty, his face flushed, his eyes full of something that had nothing to do with complaints?
What would she do?
What would she say?
She looked down at her saree. The yellow cotton was still clinging to her body, still transparent, still revealing every curve and shadow. She thought about the way Bansal had stared. She thought about the way Purshottam had stared the night before, when he had opened his door and found her standing there.
She thought about the lace in his pocket.
She smiled.
She stood up. She walked to the mirror.
"Six o'clock," she said to her reflection. "Let's see what happens."
And in the house next door, Purshottam Sharma sat on his bed with his hand pressed to his chest, feeling the shape of the lace beneath his kurta, counting the hours until sunset.