Chapter 11: The Masseur Next Door
The bedroom smelled of balm and old wood and the faint, sweet ghost of jasmine that always seemed to trail behind Ruby like a memory she refused to abandon.
The afternoon light came through the window in long, slanted bars, falling across the bed in stripes of gold and shadow. Ruby lay on her stomach, her cheek pressed to the pillow, her arms folded beneath her head. The sheet covering her was thin—a cheap cotton thing that Manoj had bought from the market three years ago, pale blue with small white flowers that had faded almost to invisibility.
She could feel the weight of the sheet against her skin. She could feel the cool air from the ceiling fan—the new one Manoj had installed two weeks ago, after the old one finally gave up and died with a groan and a shower of sparks. She could feel the knot in her shoulder, hard and insistent, a small stone buried beneath her flesh that refused to be moved.
Three months since the fall. Three months since she had slipped on the wet bathroom floor and landed hard on her right side, her arm twisted beneath her, her shoulder taking the full impact. Three months of doctors and X-rays and painkillers that made her foggy and dull. Three months of Manoj's worried eyes following her everywhere, watching her wince, watching her struggle to lift a glass of water, watching her cry in frustration when she could not reach behind her back to tie her own blouse.
The doctors had said it was a muscle tear. A severe one. The kind that healed slowly, if it healed at all. They had given her exercises. They had given her injections. They had given her advice that amounted to nothing more than wait and see.
And Ruby had waited. She had waited with gritted teeth and swallowed tears and a smile that she forced onto her face every morning so that Manoj would not worry more than he already did. She had waited through spring and into summer, through the heat and the dust and the endless, grinding sameness of days spent inside the house, unable to do the simplest things without pain.
She had not been to the temple in weeks. She had not gone to the market. She had not walked to the corner shop to torment Bansal with her low-waisted sarees and her knowing smiles. She had become, for the first time in her life, invisible—a woman reduced to her injury, defined by what she could not do rather than what she could.
She hated it.
She hated every moment of it.
But tonight, for the first time in months, something was going to happen. Something that might help. Something that might finally ease the knot in her shoulder and the ache in her back and the dull, persistent throb that had become as familiar as her own heartbeat.
Manoj had found someone. A masseur. A man who had once been trained in the old ways—the pressure points, the deep tissue work, the kind of healing that came from hands that knew where to push and how hard and for how long. A man who, according to the specialist, might be able to break up the scar tissue that had formed, might be able to release the muscles that had clenched themselves into permanent knots, might be able to give Ruby back her body.
She had not asked who it was. She had not cared. She had just felt a flicker of hope—small and fragile and desperately needed.
But when Manoj had told her, when he had stood in the doorway of their bedroom with his hands clasped in front of him and his voice low and uncertain, when he had said the name—
Purshottam Sharma. The neighbor. The dwarf. The man who had spent years making snide comments about her clothing, her behavior, her existence. The man who had called her a whore beneath his breath and a disgrace to womanhood behind her back. The man who had, three months ago, stared at her breasts through her thin yellow saree as if he had never seen a woman before.
Ruby had felt something cold settle in her stomach.
"No," she had said. "Absolutely not."
Manoj had pleaded. He had explained. He had told her about the specialist's recommendation, about the training Purshottam had received as a young man, about the fact that they had exhausted every other option and that this might be their last chance.
"He's changed," Manoj had said. "He's old now. He's—Ruby, he's practically a different person."
Ruby had laughed at that. A bitter, dry laugh that scraped her throat raw.
"People don't change," she had said. "They just get tired."
But she had agreed in the end.
She had agreed because the pain was unbearable. She had agreed because she could not sleep. She had agreed because she was tired of being broken.
She had agreed because Manoj had looked at her with those soft, worried eyes, and she had not been able to say no.
And now it was evening. And the doorbell had rung. And Manoj had answered it, his voice low and polite, and then there had been footsteps—slow, shuffling footsteps, the sound of old feet on old floors—and then the bedroom door had opened.
Purshottam Sharma stood in the doorway.
He was small. He had always been small—that was not something she had ever been able to forget—but tonight he seemed smaller than usual, diminished somehow. He wore a plain white kurta and a pair of loose pajamas, and he carried a small leather case in one hand. His gray hair was combed flat against his head, and his face was set in an expression that Ruby could not quite read.
He looked at her. She looked at him.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
Then Manoj cleared his throat.
"I'll be right here," he said. "The whole time."
Purshottam nodded without looking at him.
"Of course," he said.
His voice was different than Ruby remembered. Quieter. Softer. The sneer that had always lurked at the edges of his words was gone. He sounded tired. He sounded old.
He took a step into the room.
Ruby turned her head away, pressing her cheek harder into the pillow. She did not want to look at him. She did not want to see the satisfaction in his eyes, the smugness, the knowledge that she had been forced to call on him—him, of all people—for help.
She heard him set the case down. She heard the soft click of the clasp. She heard him move closer to the bed, his footsteps heavy on the wooden floor.
"I will start with the shoulder," he said. "The right one, yes?"
"Yes," Ruby said. The word came out flat.
"I will need to—the sheet. I will need to move it."
Manoj stepped forward.
"Just the shoulder," he said. His voice was firm. "Just her back. Nothing else."
Purshottam turned to look at him. His face had not changed from its tired, neutral expression.
"I am a professional," he said. "Or I was. Many years ago. I know what is appropriate."
Manoj did not look convinced. But he nodded.
"Alright," he said. "Alright."
He retreated to the corner of the room, crossing his arms over his chest. His face was pale. His jaw was clenched.
Ruby closed her eyes.
She felt Purshottam's hands on the sheet—warm, surprisingly warm—as they peeled the fabric down her back, over the swell of her hips, to rest just above the curve of her buttocks. She felt the cool air on her skin. She felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up.
She was wearing nothing beneath the sheet. No blouse. No sari. Just her bare skin and the thin cotton fabric that now covered only her lower half.
She had not thought about this when she had agreed. She had not thought about the fact that she would be lying in front of Purshottam Sharma with her back exposed, her breasts pressed to the mattress, her body open and vulnerable and utterly defenseless.
But she could not back out now. The pain was too severe. The need was too great.
She heard the sound of oil being poured. She heard Purshottam rub his hands together.
Then his palms pressed against her shoulder, and she forgot everything else.
His hands were not what she had expected.
They were not the hands of an old man—not the wrinkled, trembling, weak hands she had imagined when Manoj had told her the news. They were strong. Calloused. Sure. They found the knot in her shoulder in seconds, pressing down without hesitation, circling the damaged muscle with a precision that made her gasp.
"Here," Purshottam murmured. "The knot is here."
His thumbs dug deep, deeper than she thought possible, and Ruby cried out—a sound that was pure pain and pure pleasure, a sound that she had not made in months, a sound that she had forgotten she was capable of making.
She heard Manoj shift in the corner.
She heard Purshottam's breath catch—just slightly, just for a moment—before he continued.
"Breathe," he said. "You must breathe."
Ruby tried. She inhaled through her nose, exhaled through her mouth, tried to relax into the pressure of his hands. But the pain was so intense, so overwhelming, that she could not relax. She could only feel.
His thumbs circled her shoulder blade, pressing deeper, breaking up the knots that had been there for months. She felt tears gather in the corners of her eyes. She felt sweat roll down her back.
She felt something else too—something she did not want to acknowledge.
A warmth. A tingling. A slow, spreading awareness of her own body that she had not felt in weeks, months, what felt like forever.
She had been in pain for so long that she had forgotten what it was like to feel anything else. She had forgotten the simple pleasure of being touched. She had forgotten the way her body could respond to warmth and pressure and human contact.
But now, with Purshottam's hands on her shoulder, she remembered.
She opened her eyes.
She turned her head on the pillow.
And she looked at him.
He was focused. His eyes were on his work, on her shoulder, on the task at hand. His brow was furrowed. His lips were pressed together.
He did not look at her face. He did not look at the curve of her hip beneath the sheets, at the swell of her breasts pressed against the mattress, at the way her body was laid out like an offering.
He just worked.
But she saw something—something flicker in his eyes, something that was not professional, something that he was trying very hard to hide.
She saw it when his gaze drifted, just for a second, to the small of her back. She saw it when his breath caught again, when his hands paused, when he had to force himself to continue.
He wanted her.
He wanted her.
The man who had called her a whore, who had mocked her clothing, who had sneered at her for years—he wanted her.
And Ruby felt a smile tug at the corner of her lips.
"Do you remember," she said, her voice soft and low, "the yellow saree?"
Purshottam's hands stopped moving.
Manoj's head snapped up.
"What?" Manoj said.
Ruby ignored him. She kept her eyes on Purshottam. She watched his face go pale, then red, then pale again.
"The one I wore to the shop," she continued. "Three months ago. The day before the fall."
Purshottam did not answer. His hands were frozen on her shoulder.
"I remember," Ruby said. "You were standing at your gate. You looked at me like—"
"Ruby," Manoj said sharply. "What are you doing?"
She turned to look at him. Her husband was standing in the corner, his arms still crossed, his face confused and concerned and slightly angry.
"Nothing," she said. "Just making conversation."
She turned back to Purshottam.
"Continue," she said. "Please."
For a long moment, no one moved.
Then Purshottam cleared his throat. He picked up the bottle of oil. He poured a little more into his palm.
"You will need many sessions," he said. His voice was steady, but his hands were trembling—just slightly, just enough that Ruby could feel it through the pressure of his palms. "The damage is deep."
Ruby closed her eyes again. She let her body relax into the mattress.
"Then you will come every day, uncle," she whispered. "Every day."
She heard him inhale sharply.
She felt his hands resume their work—pressing, kneading, breaking up the knots in her shoulder.
She felt Manoj watching from the corner, confused and worried and trying to understand what was happening.
She did not care.
She was in pain.
She was being healed.
And for the first time in three months, she felt alive.