Chapter 10: The Garage Meeting
The first hint of dawn was a grey smudge behind the taller buildings as Samarth slipped out of Rashmi’s building. The air was cool and damp, carrying the smell of wet pavement and diesel. He walked, not hailed a rickshaw, needing the motion to settle the odd disquiet that had clung to him since reading Meena’s text. The silence of Rashmi’s penthouse felt like a vacuum he’d escaped.
The society gates, ornate and iron, were just being unlocked by a yawning guard. Samarth nodded, a familiar face now, and the guard waved him through without a word. The garage was a low, concrete structure at the rear of the compound, away from the main buildings.
The back door, a peeling blue metal thing, was indeed slightly ajar. He pushed it open, the hinge groaning softly. Inside, the garage was a cavern of shadows and shapes, lit by a single, buzzing tube light near the front. The air was thick, stagnant, a blend of old gasoline, damp concrete, and the sweet, cloying scent of night-blooming jasmine that crept over the wall from somewhere.
“Hello?” His voice felt too loud.
A figure detached itself from the deeper shadows near a stack of old tires. Meena. She was wearing a simple, faded floral kameez over a salwar, her dupatta pulled tight around her shoulders like a shield. In the poor light, she looked younger and older all at once—her eyes wide and anxious, but the lines around them speaking of a different kind of weariness than Rashmi’s.
“You came,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.
“You asked.” Samarth kept his tone neutral, casual. He leaned against the doorframe, letting his eyes adjust. “Pinki said you might… need some company.”
Meena flinched slightly at Pinki’s name, as if it were a small slap. She nodded, her gaze dropping to the oil-stained floor. “She talks too much. But she is not wrong.” She finally looked up, her eyes tracing his frame. “You are the one. The one who goes to the ladies in the big flats.”
“I visit friends,” he said, a half-smile playing on his lips.
A faint, nervous smile touched hers. “A lucky friend, I think.” She turned and walked deeper into the garage, towards a recessed alcove that served as a tool storage room. A bare, dusty mattress was shoved against one wall, covered with a faded bedsheet. A single bulb with a pull string hung overhead.
She stood in the center of the cramped space, her arms wrapped around herself. The trembling he’d felt in Rashmi was a controlled vibration; in Meena, it was a full, visible shudder, like a leaf in a breeze.
“You don’t have to be scared,” Samarth said, not moving closer yet.
“I am not scared of you,” she said quickly, then corrected herself. “I am scared of… this. Of wanting this. It has been so long. Since my husband… it has only been me. And my hands.” The admission seemed to cost her. She looked away, ashamed.
Samarth closed the distance slowly. He didn’t touch her at first, just stood close enough that she could feel the heat from his body. “There’s no shame in wanting. Everyone does.”
He reached out and gently tugged the end of her dupatta. It slithered from her shoulders. She let him. He untied the knot at the nape of her neck that held her kameez closed. The fabric parted. Underneath, she wore a simple, worn cotton petticoat. Her body was lean, strong from work, her breasts smaller and softer than Rashmi’s, tipped with dark, hard nipples already pebbled from the cool air and anticipation.
He bent his head and kissed the side of her neck, just below her ear. She gasped, a sharp intake of breath that seemed to surprise her. Her skin tasted of soap and sweat.
“You can touch me,” he murmured against her skin.
Her hands came up, hesitant, then settled on his biceps. Her grip tightened, feeling the solid muscle there. A small, awed sound escaped her. He continued to undress her, peeling the kameez and salwar away, then her petticoat, until she stood naked in the dusty room. He guided her down onto the mattress. The sheet smelled faintly of mildew and sun.
He stripped efficiently, watching her eyes widen as she took him in. Her gaze fixed on his cock, already hard and thick. A look of pure, unadulterated want erased the fear from her face.
“You will not fit,” she breathed, not a protest, but a statement of terrifying awe.
“We’ll go slow,” he said, kneeling between her legs. He kissed the inside of her knee, her thigh. She was already wet, her scent musky and intimate. He used his fingers first, one, then two, opening her gently, feeling her inner muscles clutch at him. She moaned, her head rolling back on the thin pillow, her hips lifting to meet his touch.
When he finally positioned himself and pressed forward, she cried out—a short, sharp sound that was swallowed by the garage’s emptiness. He stopped, buried only an inch inside her tight, gripping heat.
“More,” she pleaded, her voice ragged. “Please, beta, more.”
The familial term, so incongruous in the moment, sent a strange jolt through him. He pushed deeper, slowly, relentlessly, feeling her body stretch and accommodate him. Her nails dug into his forearms. Her legs came up to wrap around his waist, pulling him in further until he was fully sheathed. They both lay still for a moment, joined, breathing hard.
Then he began to move. Not with the controlled, punishing rhythm he’d used on Rashmi, but with a deep, steady roll of his hips, designed to build a fire, not explode one. Her responses were untutored, desperate. She met each thrust with a gasp, her eyes squeezed shut, then flying open as if to convince herself this was real.
“It’s so much,” she chanted, “oh god, it’s so much.”
He shifted angle, driving deeper. Her back arched off the mattress. Her orgasm took her suddenly, a surprised, violent clenching that rippled through her entire frame. She screamed into her own hand, biting down on her knuckles to muffle the sound. He kept moving, prolonging it, until she was sobbing from overstimulation.
Only then did he allow his own pace to quicken, his thrusts becoming harder, shorter, more urgent. The slap of skin on skin echoed off the concrete walls. He came with a guttural groan, pumping his release deep inside her, feeling her still-fluttering walls milk every last drop from him.
He collapsed beside her, both of them slick with sweat, their breathing the only sound in the heavy silence. The bulb above them swung slightly on its wire, casting moving shadows.
After a long while, Meena spoke, her voice husky and filled with a kind of stunned reverence. “I have not felt… full… in years.”
She turned onto her side, propping her head on her hand. She looked at his profile, then her gaze drifted down his body again. “Pinki said you are… reliable. That you come when called. That you are… generous.”
Samarth looked at the water-stained ceiling. “Pinki talks a lot.”
“Will you come again?” Meena asked, her voice small. “I could… I could make time. In the mornings. Before the families wake. No one comes here.”
He looked at her. The loneliness in her eyes was a deep, quiet well. It was different from Rashmi’s performance of stress, or Anju’s grief. This was a fundamental emptiness. His seed was probably still leaking from her onto the musty sheet.
“If you want me to,” he said.
“I do.” Her answer was immediate, fierce. “Every day. If you can.”
He sat up, starting to gather his clothes. “Then I will.”
She watched him dress, her eyes lingering. As he pulled his shirt on, she spoke again, almost to herself. “My husband, he was a good man. But he was sick for a long time at the end. It was not like this. It was never like this.”
Samarth finished lacing his shoes. He leaned over, kissed her forehead. Her eyes fluttered closed. “Get cleaned up,” he said gently. “The society will be waking.”
He left her there, on the stained mattress, pulling the sheet around her naked body. As he stepped out of the garage into the brightening morning, the sharp smell of the city hit him—trash, flowers, exhaust. He pulled out his phone. Two new messages. One from Anju, a simple “Good morning.” Another from an unknown number, likely a new client, asking for his “weekly rate.”
He deleted the new number without replying. He texted Anju back: “Morning. Rain finally came last night.”
He walked towards the gates, the events of the past twelve hours layering in his mind like sediments—Rashmi’s shattered elegance, Meena’s hungry desperation. Each woman lived in her own sealed world of want, and he was the temporary key. It was a simple transaction, he told himself. A service rendered. But the look in Meena’s eyes, that raw, grateful need, it clung to him, a slight, persistent weight he couldn’t quite shake as he melted into the stream of early-morning commuters.