Chapter 7: Sisterly Servitude
The morning after the storm dawned brittle and clear, the world washed clean but the air inside the house thick with unsaid things. Prema moved through the routine of tea and breakfast with a serene detachment that was more unnerving than any outburst. She served Prem his eggs, her fingers briefly brushing his as she handed him the plate. She smiled at Shilpa, a gentle, meaningless curve of the lips that didn’t touch her eyes. She said nothing about the night, about the sounds, about the shadows on the wall.
When Prem left for the town office, the atmosphere did not lighten. It condensed, like syrup settling at the bottom of a glass. Shilpa avoided everyone’s gaze, her movements fragile, as if a loud sound would shatter her. Prema watched her for a long moment from the doorway of the kitchen, then turned and walked to the telephone in the hall.
Her heart was a cold, hard knot in her chest. She dialed the number she had memorized from the receipt tucked behind the ledger. It rang three times.
“Hello?” Rasika’s voice, edged with lazy expectation, probably hoping it was Prem.
“It’s Didi,” Prema said, her voice low and even. “The rain has ruined my rose bushes. The ones by the back wall. I need your advice on the cuttings this afternoon.”
A silence pulsed down the line, thick with comprehension. The rose bushes by the back wall were a fiction; they both knew it. It was the place farthest from the house, shielded by a dense curtain of bamboo, utterly private.
“My expertise with cuttings is… specialized,” Rasika replied slowly, a new caution in her tone. “But for you, Didi, I can make time. After lunch? When the sun is high and everyone naps?”
“Yes,” Prema said. “When the sun is high.” She hung up without another word.
The bamboo grove hissed softly in the afternoon breeze. Sunlight sliced through the thick canopy in sharp, dusty shafts. Prema stood waiting, her simple cotton sari blending with the dappled shadows. She held no gardening tools.
Rasika appeared like a specter from the other side of the green wall. She was dressed not for gardening, but for a performance—a tightly wrapped silk sari, her lips painted a bold crimson. She stopped a few feet away, her eyes scanning Prema’s face for clues.
“No shears, Didi?” Rasika asked, a mocking smile playing on her lips.
“We both know why we’re here,” Prema said, cutting through the pretense. Her voice held none of its usual softness. It was flat, factual, a blade. “You watched last night. You watched him rape that girl five feet from his pregnant wife.”
Rasika’s smirk faltered for a second, then returned, wider. “Is that what you call it? I saw a willing girl getting what she secretly craves. She wears his gold, doesn’t she? She could have screamed. She could have run to you.” She took a step closer. “But she didn’t. She never does.”
Prema didn’t flinch. “I’m not here to debate her willingness. I’m here because of the look you gave me when I came back to the hall. You have questions. I have a proposition.”
Rasika lit a cigarette, blowing the smoke upwards. “I’m listening.”
“He’s tired of you,” Prema stated, watching the words land like blows. “You see it. I see it. He keeps you for the things a wife won’t do, but you’re not new anymore. He uses your own sister to humiliate you. He fucks Shilpa in the open, in front of me, to show us all how little we mean. You’re just another piece in his house.”
Rasika’s eyes narrowed, the insult burning through her composure. “And you? The sacred wife? You’re the biggest piece of all. At least I get fucked. You just get swollen.”
“I am the wife,” Prema said, her tone glacial. “The legal one. The one on the documents. The one who will inherit half of everything if he leaves me. The one whose family will raise a riot if I’m mistreated. You… you are a habit. One he can break when a younger, shinier habit comes along.” She paused, letting the truth sink into the fragrant, sun-warmed air. “Sarika is waiting for her chance. Shilpa is his current obsession. Where does that leave you?”
Rasika took a long drag, her hand trembling slightly. “What’s your proposition?”
“I want him ruined,” Prema said, the words dropping like stones. “Not divorced. Not embarrassed. Ruined. Financially, socially, completely. I want him to have nothing but the clothes on his back and the memory of every woman he’s ever used laughing at him.”
A slow, predatory smile spread across Rasika’s face. “Now you’re speaking my language, Didi. But why would I help you? Once he’s ruined, I have nothing too.”
“You’ll have a share of what we take from him,” Prema said. “Enough to start over somewhere else, far from here. A new name, a new life. No more being ‘Jiju’s whore.’ You’ll be a woman with her own money. And you’ll have the satisfaction of watching the man who thinks he owns you crawl.”
Rasika was silent for a full minute, the only sound the rustling bamboo. She finished her cigarette, grinding it under her heel. “What do you need?”
“Information. Everything. The bribes, the black accounts, the fake suppliers. The dirty deals. The names. The numbers.” Prema’s eyes were like chips of obsidian. “You lie next to him when he’s sleepy, when he’s boastful. He talks. I know he does. I’ve heard him through the walls, bragging to you about his cleverness.”
“He does,” Rasika admitted, a flicker of respect in her gaze. “And?”
“And you get it for me. You write it down. You record it if you can. You find the papers he brings to your house when he’s too lazy to go to his study.”
“And in return?”
“You get your share. And you get to keep your pride. When the time comes, you walk away clean, while he drowns.”
Rasika walked a slow circle around Prema, assessing her like a piece of livestock. “You’re harder than I thought, Didi. All this time, playing the gentle cow.”
“A cow will gore you to protect her calf,” Prema said, her hand resting on her stomach. “Now. Do we have an understanding?”
Rasika stopped in front of her. She extended a hand, not for shaking, but as a seal. Prema took it. The grip was firm, cold, a pact sealed in the shadows.
“We have an understanding,” Rasika said. “But I want something else. A guarantee.”
“What?”
“When it’s done… I want to be there. I want to see his face when you tell him. I want to spit in his eye.”
Prema nodded once. “You’ll get your chance.”
They parted without another word, melting back into the separate worlds of the main house and the outer bungalow. The alliance was forged not in friendship, but in mutual, simmering hatred.
That evening, Prem returned home restless, the energy pouring off him like a fever. The encounter with Prema in the bamboo grove had left Rasika agitated, and she had passed that agitation to him during a brief, charged phone call, a cat’s-paw stirring the tiger. He ate dinner in a brooding silence, his eyes constantly seeking Shilpa, who flinched under his gaze like a whipped dog.
Later, he retreated to his study, the door closed. The faint strains of classical music seeped out. But Prema, passing the door on her way to bed, heard another sound underneath the music: the rough, rhythmic scratch of a pen on paper. He was writing something. A deal? A letter? Instructions?
She paused, her ear almost touching the wood. The scratching stopped. She hurried away, her pulse a quick drum in her throat.
An hour later, the music stopped. Prem’s heavy footsteps crossed the hall. He did not come to the bedroom. Prema heard the front door open and close softly. She went to the window, parting the curtain just enough to see him striding across the moonlit lawn, a dark shape moving with purpose towards Rasika’s house.
He did not knock. The door opened before he reached it, as if she had been waiting, watching. He vanished inside.
The lights in the front room glowed for a while. Then they went out. A single light came on upstairs, in Rasika’s bedroom. The curtain was open. From her vantage, Prema could see the silhouettes. Two figures. Close. Arguing? Rasika’s shape gestured wildly. Prem’s stood still, imposing.
Then, the silhouettes merged. Rasika’s hands went to Prem’s head, pulling him down into a kiss that was all teeth and hunger. Prema watched, her face a mask of icy calm. This was part of the transaction now. Let him have his distractions. They were digging his grave.
Inside Rasika’s bedroom, the argument had been about Sarika, about the farmhouse, about humiliation. It had ended, as it always did, with his hands on her body, her anger transmuting into a fierce, possessive lust.
He pushed her against the wall by the window, his mouth devouring hers, his hands ripping at the buttons of her blouse. “You talk too much,” he growled against her lips.
“You don’t listen enough,” she shot back, biting his lower lip hard enough to draw a metallic taste. She tore at his shirt, her fingers digging into the thick hair of his chest. “You give my sister my places. My farmhouse. You think I’m replaceable?”
He grasped her breast roughly, squeezing until she gasped. “You are if you keep whining.”
“Fuck you,” she snarled, her hand sliding down to cup the hard bulge in his trousers. “This says otherwise.”
He undid his pants, freeing his erection. He didn’t bother with her petticoat or sari. He simply pushed the fabric aside, his fingers finding her already wet, her body betraying her fury with its readiness. He drove into her with a brutal, claiming thrust, pinning her to the wall.
Rasika cried out, a sharp, guttural sound of pain and triumph. Her legs wrapped around his hips, her heels digging into the small of his back. “Yes, Jiju,” she hissed in his ear, her voice raw. “Like that. Remind her who you belong to. Remind everyone.”
He fucked her with a relentless, punishing rhythm, each slam of his hips driving her body against the wall. The old house creaked around them. He was silent except for his ragged breathing, his focus entirely on the physical act of domination.
“You’re mine,” Rasika chanted, her nails scraping down his back. “Say it. Say you’re my fucking dog.”
He responded by grabbing her hair, yanking her head back, and sinking his teeth into the tendon of her neck. She screamed, her body convulsing around him. The pain tipped her over the edge, her orgasm tearing through her with violent intensity. He followed seconds later, a low, animal groan escaping him as he spilled into her, his body shuddering against hers.
They slumped against the wall, a tangled, sweating heap. For a minute, the only sound was their ragged breathing. Then, from the shadows at the door, came the soft, unmistakable sound of a sob.
Prem’s head snapped up. Rasika, a cruel smile already forming on her swollen lips, looked over his shoulder.
Sarika stood there, a pale ghost in a thin nightdress, her hand clapped over her mouth. Her eyes were wide, horrified, glued to their joined bodies still pinned against the wall.
Rasika didn’t cover herself. She leaned her head back against the wall, utterly exposed. “See something you like, beti?” she asked, her voice hoarse but dripping with malice. “Or did you just come to watch the master at work?”
Prem slowly pulled out of her, turning to face his sister-in-law. He made no move to cover himself. His expression was one of irritated amusement. “Do you need something, Sarika?”
Sarika could only stare, her face a battlefield of shock, shame, and a deep, wrenching hurt. She had heard them arguing. She had come, hoping… she didn’t know what she’d hoped. To see Rasika thrown out? To be comforted? Instead, she’d witnessed the raw, brutal reconciliation, a display that left no doubt about Rasika’s permanent hold.
“I… I heard shouting,” she stammered.
“And you got a show,” Rasika said, pushing away from the wall and letting her clothes fall back into place with a casual disdain. She walked, with a slight, deliberate wince, to her dressing table and lit a cigarette. “Better than anything on TV, no? Now you know how it’s done. How a real woman keeps her man.”
Sarika’s tears overflowed. She looked at Prem, a silent plea in her eyes.
Prem zipped his trousers. “Go to bed, Sarika.”
It was the dismissal that broke her. Not anger, not reprimand. Just a bored, impatient instruction, as if she were a child interrupting a meeting. Her last shred of hope evaporated. She turned and fled, her footsteps stumbling down the stairs.
Rasika exhaled a stream of smoke, watching her sister’s retreat through the open door. “Pathetic,” she murmured. She looked at Prem, who was pouring himself a drink from the bottle on her nightstand. “She’ll never learn.”
Prem downed the whiskey. “No,” he agreed, his voice flat. “She won’t.”
He left soon after, returning to the main house. He smelled of sex, sweat, and Rasika’s cloying perfume. He slipped into bed beside Prema, who pretended to be asleep. She lay still, listening to his breathing even out, feeling the heat radiating from his body.
Her mind was not on his betrayal, not on the scent of another woman on his skin. It was on the scratching of his pen in the study. It was on the look she had seen on Sarika’s face from the window—a look of absolute, shattered despair.
Broken things, Prema thought in the dark, could be sharp. They could be used. She filed Sarika’s name away in her growing list of instruments.
Outside, the moon painted the garden in shades of bone and ash. In her little room, Shilpa stared at the ceiling, the ghost of Prem’s weight still pressing her into the mattress. In her own house, Rasika sat by her window, not smiling now, her mind coldly assembling every piece of information she had ever gleaned from Prem’s careless boasts. And in the room next to Prema, Sarika cried herself into a exhausted, hollow sleep, her dreams filled with the sight of her sister’s triumphant, sweaty face and Prem’s indifferent, retreating back.
The pieces were moving on the board, pulled by strings of vengeance and despair. And Prema, the quiet wife, the pregnant cow, lay awake at the center of it all, her eyes open in the darkness, planning the next move.
And Prema, the quiet wife, the pregnant cow, lay awake at the center of it all, her eyes open in the darkness, planning the next move. Her hand rested on the hard swell of her belly, feeling the child turn, a slow, somersaulting reminder of futures yet unwritten. She needed Rasika to act, to deliver the first concrete piece of his undoing. The silence of the house was a held breath, waiting to be exhaled as violence or revelation.
The following afternoon, restless and aggrieved by Shilpa’s cowering silence, Prem left the main house. His blood felt too hot, his skin too tight. He needed friction, the sweet abrasion of conquest. He crossed the lawn not to the bungalow he’d left hours before, but to the other one, where a different flavor of submission awaited. He walked with a clear, predatory intent, the memory of Sarika’s shattered face at the farmhouse only fueling his need to see it again, to punish her for her weakness and her want.
He found them in the front room, Rasika painting her nails a venomous green, Sarika pretending to read a film magazine. The air was thick with their unspoken war. Prem entered without knocking, the doorframe filling with his presence. Both women looked up. Rasika’s eyes lit with a familiar, hungry recognition. Sarika’s widened, then dropped to his crotch, where the outline of his erection was unmistakable against his fitted trousers. She flushed, a deep, shameful red spreading from her neck to her cheeks.
“Jiju,” Rasika purred, blowing on her nails. “We were just talking about you. Weren’t we, Sarika? Wondering if you were busy fucking that little cousin-sister or just thinking about it.”
Prem’s gaze locked on Sarika, who squirmed under his scrutiny. “Maybe I’m here to fuck someone else,” he said, his voice a low rumble.
Rasika laughed, a sharp, knowing sound. “Promises, promises. That thing in your pants looks like it means business, though. Big, hard business.” She leaned forward, giving him a view down her blouse. “Why don’t you come show me if it’s just for show?”
Sarika’s magazine rustled in her trembling hands. Prem didn’t even glance at Rasika. He kept his eyes on Sarika, watching her breath hitch. “Maybe I don’t want to,” he said, a cruel game taking shape in his mind.
“Oh?” Rasika stood, slinking towards him. She placed a hand on his chest, her fingers toying with the open collar of his shirt, tracing the line of his chest hair. “You don’t want this? You don’t want me to suck that thick cock until you forget your own name?” Her other hand cupped him through his trousers, squeezing firmly. She leaned in, her voice dropping to a filthy whisper meant for all to hear. “You don’t want me to ride you reverse, so you can watch your own dick disappear into my wet cunt? So you can slap my ass while I bounce on it like a common whore?”
Sarika made a small, choked sound. Prem finally broke his stare, looking down at Rasika with a wolfish grin. “You talk too much.”
“Then shut me up,” she breathed, and took his hand, pulling him towards the bedroom.
Sarika was left alone in the fading afternoon light, the pages of her magazine blurring before her eyes. The door didn’t fully close. Within moments, the sounds began. The heavy thud of a body against a wall. Rasika’s loud, theatrical gasp. “Yes, Jiju! Right there!”
Then, the rhythmic, headboard-slamming percussion of him fucking her. Rasika’s voice was a continuous, obscene soundtrack. “Oh god, you’re so deep! You’re splitting me open, you bastard! Fuck! Harder! Tear this pussy apart!” Her cries were punctuated by wet, slapping sounds, the brutal tempo of flesh on flesh.
Sarika sat frozen, her own body betraying her. A familiar, aching heat pooled between her legs. She pressed her thighs together, but it only heightened the sensation. Each of Rasika’s screams, each of Prem’s guttural groans, felt like a needle pricking her skin. She was disgusted at herself, at the dampness she felt soaking through her underwear, at the way her own hand crept to her breast, squeezing it through her kurta. She pictured them: Rasika’s legs wrapped around his back, her nails clawing at that hairy chest, her mouth open in a perfect ‘O’ of pleasure as he drove into her, his balls slapping against her.
The sounds crested and crashed in a symphony of climax—Rasika’s shriek, Prem’s roared curse, a final, shuddering silence broken only by heavy breathing.
After a while, the bedroom door swung open. Rasika emerged first, disheveled and glorious. Her hair was a wild cascade, her lips swollen, her kurta barely buttoned. Prem followed, shirtless, a cigarette already between his lips. The dense, dark hair on his chest was matted with sweat. He exhaled a stream of smoke, his eyes heavy-lidded and satisfied.
They settled on the sofa opposite Sarika, their bodies still radiating a blatant, post-coital heat. Rasika curled into Prem’s side, her fingers lazily tracing patterns through the sweat-damp hair on his chest. She looked at Sarika, a slow, victorious smile spreading across her face.
“Sound carries in this house, doesn’t it, beti?” Rasika said, her voice husky from screaming. “I hope we didn’t disturb your reading.”
Sarika couldn’t speak. Her throat was sealed shut with shame and want.
Prem watched her, amused. “Cat got your tongue?”
“I think the cat’s got something else,” Rasika giggled, nuzzling his shoulder. “She’s sitting there so prim, but look at her eyes, Jiju. She’s practically dripping. Listening to us fuck made her little virgin cunt weep, didn’t it?”
“Shut up,” Sarika whispered, the words lacking any force.
“Why?” Rasika pressed, enjoying herself. “You liked it. Admit it. You liked hearing how a real woman takes a real man. Not that pathetic, dry little fumble you had at the farmhouse.” She looked up at Prem, playing with a curl of his chest hair. “Was she as boring as she sounded, Jiju? Did she just lie there like a cold fish?”
Prem took a drag of his cigarette, his eyes on Sarika’s flushed face. “She was enthusiastic. In her own way.”
“Enthusiastic?” Rasika scoffed. “She cried. That’s not enthusiasm, that’s incompetence.” She shifted her gaze back to Sarika, a malicious idea blooming. “You know what you need? Practice. And an object lesson.” She stroked Prem’s chest. “Look at him. He’s still sweaty from fucking me properly. All that hard work. You should massage his shoulders. Be useful for once.”
Sarika stared, disbelief warring with a terrible, crawling desire.
“Go on,” Prem said, his voice soft but edged with command. “Your Didi is right. Make yourself useful.”
Her limbs moved as if pulled by strings. She rose, walked over on unsteady legs, and stood behind the sofa. Prem sat forward, presenting his broad, muscular back to her. The skin was warm, gleaming with sweat. The scent of him—cigarette smoke, sex, Rasika’s perfume, his own raw musk—invaded her senses. She placed her trembling hands on his shoulders and began to knead the hard muscle.
“Harder,” he grunted. “You’re not petting a kitten.”
She pressed deeper, her fingers working into the knots of tension. The physical act, the intimacy of touching his bare skin, sent shocks through her. A soft, involuntary moan escaped her lips as she felt the powerful strength beneath her hands.
Rasika heard it. “Listen to her,” she laughed, a low, dirty chuckle. “Getting turned on by a back rub. So desperate.” Her hand drifted down Prem’s torso, over the ridges of his stomach, and into his lap. She cupped him through his trousers. “And look at this, beti. You got him hard again. Just your little hands on him. Pathetic.”
Sarika’s movements faltered. She could see Rasika’s hand moving in his lap, could see the bulge thickening under the fabric. Her own breathing grew ragged. Her fingers dug into his skin, her nails leaving faint, red trails.
“See?” Rasika murmured, her own breath hitching as she felt him swell under her palm. “She’s a quick learner. She wants to see what happens next.” With a swift, possessive motion, Rasika stood up. She took Prem’s hand. “But she doesn’t get to. This is mine.”
She pulled Prem to his feet, leading him back towards the bedroom. He went willingly, casting one last, look over his shoulder at Sarika—a look of pitying amusement. Rasika paused at the door, glancing back at her sister, who stood frozen, hands still curved in the air where his shoulders had been.
“Finish your magazine, choti behen,” Rasika said, her voice dripping with false sweetness. Then she pulled Prem inside and closed the door, this time latching it with a definitive click.
The second performance was more subdued, a series of deep, rhythmic thumps and Rasika’s low, satisfied sighs, a private symphony meant not to taunt but to exclude completely.
Sarika remained standing in the center of the room for a long time, the ghost of his warmth still on her palms, the sound of the locking door echoing in the hollow of her chest. The dampness between her legs had cooled into a sticky, shameful mess. The magazine, the room, her own skin—everything felt cheap and used. She was not a player in their game. She was the board on which they played, her squares marked by their casual cruelty. A profound, chilling clarity settled over her: she was nothing to him but a toy he’d briefly borrowed and returned, broken, to her sister.
In the main house, Prema stood at her bedroom window, watching the path between the houses. She saw Prem return, his step loose, his shirt still untucked. She saw the focused, purposeful look on his face. He had been fed, his ego stroked, his urges sated. He was pliable.
Later that night, as he smoked on the veranda, she brought him a glass of whisky, the ice clinking softly. “Rasika looks after you well,” she said, her voice neutral, observational.
“She knows her place,” he grunted, taking the glass.
“Unlike Shilpa,” Prema ventured, watching him carefully. “She’s so nervous all the time. Jumping at shadows. It’s not good for the… atmosphere. For my condition.”
Prem sighed, a cloud of smoke escaping his lips. “She’s a stupid girl. Thinks I’ll set her up in some flat in the city. Thinks she’s worth more than a few gifts.” He took a long drink. “I’ll have to make other arrangements soon. The old customs officer’s son has been asking. Thinks she’s pretty. A few lakhs should settle it.”
Prema’s blood ran cold, but her face remained a placid mask. He was planning to sell Shilpa. The information was clinical, brutal. It was also a thread. A customs officer meant paperwork, ledgers, bribes. It was a name. She stored it away, a piece of cold, hard data for the structure she was building.
“It must be tedious,” she said softly, “all these arrangements. The money moving here and there. The Goa partner, the customs people… it’s a wonder you keep it all in your head.”
He looked at her, a flicker of surprise in his eyes. “You wouldn’t understand. It’s not just in my head. Rakesh keeps the messy books. The fake invoices, the dummy suppliers.” He waved a hand, as if swatting a fly. “Boring business shit.”
Rakesh. The accountant. Another name. Another thread.
“Of course,” Prema said, smiling gently. “I’ll leave you to your peace.” She retreated inside, her heart hammering against her ribs.
In the dark of her room, she committed the names to memory: the customs officer, Rakesh the accountant. Rasika would need to know. The web was getting clearer. Prem saw his women as problems to be managed or assets to be traded. He saw his business as an impregnable fortress. He did not see the quiet, patient spider in the center of his own home, connecting each strand of his carelessness, slowly winding him in silk.