Chapter 10: Haath Todne Ka Badla
The steam from the shower wrapped around Usman like a shroud. He sat on the plastic stool, naked, the tepid water from the handheld sprayer hitting his shoulder and running in rivulets down his chest. The bathroom was humid, the air thick with the scent of sandalwood soap. Honeyed morning light cut through the high window, illuminating the swirling mist and catching on the droplets that clung to the grey hair on his shriveled legs.
He had not wanted her help. He had insisted, his voice a hoarse scrape, that he could manage. But his left hand, the one he’d fractured years ago in a fall, had trembled uncontrollably when he tried to lift the sprayer, a humiliating palsy that betrayed the true state of his nerves. The prayer room had broken something in him, and his body was now the evidence.
Zarine had called from the kitchen, distracted by the sizzle of parathas. “Suhu, beta, just help Dadu for two minutes. His hand is paining him.”
And so she was here.
She wore a thin, white cotton tank top and sleep shorts, both rendered nearly transparent where the spray had caught her. She moved behind him, her presence a soft disturbance in the steam. “Hold still,” she said, her voice devoid of its earlier taunting melody. It was practical.Nurse-like.
Her fingers took the spray from his trembling right hand. The water pattered against his back. Then he felt the slick, cool slide of soap being applied not with a cloth, but with her bare palms. She worked the lather over his shoulders, her thumbs kneading the knotted muscles. It was clinical at first. Then it wasn’t.
Her touch slowed. Her hands, slippery with soap, swept down the valley of his spine. She came around to his side, kneeling on the wet tiles, her focus on his chest. Her breasts, barely contained by the soaked fabric of her top, pressed against his arm as she leaned in. He stared rigidly ahead, at the faded blue tiles, at a line of black mildew in the grout. He tried to fixate on it, to become that small, dark spot.
“You’re still so tense from yesterday morning,” she murmured, as if discussing a minor ache. Her soapy hand drifted lower, over the soft plane of his stomach. His flesh quivered. “You need to relax, Dadu. Let go.”
Her hand dipped into his lap.
He jerked, a spasmodic flinch. “No,” he gasped, the word sounding weak, childish.
“Shhh,” she soothed, her other hand coming up to rest on his shoulder, pinning him lightly to the stool. “I’m just cleaning. That’s all. Be a good boy.”
Her fingers closed around his flaccid penis. He made a sound, a choked whimper stuck in his throat. She began to wash him with a terrifying, methodical care, working the soap into a lather, her strokes slow and thorough. Her gaze was downcast, focused on her work, like a craftsman attending to a delicate task. The steam, her proximity, the sheer, surreal horror of it sent a traitorous spike of heat through his gut. Against his will, against every screaming fiber of his being, he began to harden in her hand.
A small, satisfied smile touched her lips. She didn’t comment. She simply adjusted her grip, her soap-slick fist now moving with more deliberate rhythm up and down his newly rigid length. Her other hand left his shoulder and slid around his hip, her fingers trailing back through the soapy film to find the tight knot of his anus.
He cried out then, a short, sharp sound that was lost in the drumming of the water on the tiles. His fractured hand came up, trembling violently, and pressed against the wall, fingers splayed, as if seeking an anchor in the solidity of the house itself. It was no use.
“See?” she whispered, her breath hot against his ear as she leaned in, her wet breasts mashing against his back. Her soapy finger pressed insistently, not entering, just circling, a monstrous promise. “Your body knows what it needs. It’s so tired of being lonely. So tired of all those empty prayers.”
She pumped him faster, her fist a slick, tight channel. The obscene, squelching sounds of soap and friction mixed with the patter of water. Usman’s head fell back, his mouth agape, silent screams tearing through him internally. He was crumbling, dissolving in the steam. The last fortress of his dignity was being sacked with a bar of sandalwood soap and a remorseless, knowing touch.
“Come on, Dadu,” she urged, her voice dropping to a filthy, excited whisper. Her circling finger pushed, just slightly, and the shocking, invasive pressure made his hips buck. “Let it out. Let me see it. Fucking come for me. Do it.”
Her words, harsh and commanding, shattered his last resistance. A raw, guttural groan was ripped from his chest. His body convulsed, spine arching as he ejaculated into her pumping hand, streaks of white mixing with the soap suds and washing down the drain between his feet. The climax was less pleasure than an agonizing spasm of release, a physical vomit of shame.
For a moment, the only sound was his ragged, wet breathing and the relentless shower spray.
Suhu released him. She rinsed her hand calmly under the water, then turned the spray back on him, washing the evidence from his stomach and thighs with the same detached efficiency. She stood up, her knees popping softly. She looked down at him, a slumped, broken figure on a plastic stool, clean and utterly defiled.
She turned off the water. The sudden silence was deafening. In the distance, Zarine called, “Everything okay in there?”
“All clean, Ammi!” Suhu called back, her voice bright and normal. She tossed a dry towel into his lap. It landed with a soft thud.
He didn’t move to cover himself. He just sat there, dripping, hollowed out, staring at the water swirling around the drain.
She squeezed the water from her hair, looking at him in the misted mirror. “See?” she said quietly, her reflection a blurry ghost. “Isn’t it better to be clean?”
She left the bathroom, closing the door behind her with a soft click.
Usman sat in the silence. The honeyed light now felt harsh, exposing. He looked at his hand, still trembling against the tile. He slowly, achingly, raised it to his face. The smell of sandalwood soap clung to his skin. It was the same scent from the prayer room. He stared into the dripping, clouded mirror and saw a stranger—an old, naked man, hollow-eyed, sitting in a stall of warm, wet light, smelling of piety and sin, both scents now forever, disgustingly, the same.