Chapter 13: Maut Ka Haath
The silence in the master bedroom was absolute, broken only by the faint, ragged sound of Suhu’s breathing. The air was thick with the cloying scent of jasmine from an overturned agarbatti holder and something else, something coppery and faint beneath the perfume.
Usman lay on his back on the rumpled sheets, his eyes open and fixed on the ceiling fan, which was still. A single drop of sweat, or perhaps a tear, traced a path from his temple into the grey of his hair. His mouth was slightly agape, as if surprised by the final, catastrophic failure of his heart.
Suhu stood by the bed, looking down at him. Her glittering body oil caught the weak light from the hallway. One leg of her shorts was torn at the seam, a casualty of her frantic movements earlier. She felt nothing looking at him—no grief, no horror. Only a vast, humming emptiness, and a curious, invasive urge.
“Stupid old man,” she whispered, her voice flat. “Couldn’t even take it.”
She climbed onto the bed, the mattress groaning under her weight. She knelt over him, her knees framing his hips. His pajama bottoms were still loose from the veranda. With a clinical detachment, she pushed the fabric down. His cock lay limp against his thigh, pale and flaccid in the dim light.
She spat into her hand, the globule landing on his shriveled flesh. She worked it with her fingers, roughly, trying to incite some semblance of life. It remained stubbornly dead.
“Fine,” she muttered. “Be like that.”
She hitched her torn shorts to one side, revealing herself. She was already wet, her arousal a constant, humming current since the veranda, since watching her mother, since everything. She positioned his limp cock at her entrance and sank down onto it, forcing the soft, unyielding flesh into her body. It was a tight, uncomfortable, dry penetration. She grimaced, a sharp gasp escaping her.
“Dadu,” she breathed, her hands bracing on his cold, still chest. She began to move, rocking back and forth, the friction harsh and unpleasant. “Aapne mujhe itna chod ke mar gaye.” You fucked me so much you died. The words were ash in her mouth. “This is what you wanted, right? To die inside your precious bahu? Or inside me?”
Her movements became more frantic, a desperate attempt to feel something—anything—beyond the cold, dead flesh inside her and the colder void inside her own chest. She leaned forward, her lips brushing his ear. “You loved it on the veranda. I saw. You came harder for her than you ever did for me.”
In the doorway, Zarine watched. Her silk pajama top was unbuttoned, hanging open. Soni stood behind her, his fat, trembling hands already on her bare waist, his thick fingers digging into the soft flesh of her hips. His breath was hot and sour on her neck as he stared over her shoulder at the scene on the bed.
“By all the gods,” Soni mumbled, his voice thick with a horrifying mix of terror and arousal. He fumbled with his own trousers, freeing his erection, pressing it against the cleft of Zarine’s buttocks through her thin pajama pants. “She’s… she’s riding a corpse.”
“Shut up,” Zarine said, her tone devoid of emotion. Her eyes were locked on her daughter. This was the final unraveling, the last sacred thread snapped. There was no shock left in her, only a cold, strategic clarity. Usman was dead. The problem, and the witness, was gone. Now there was only containment.
She reached back, guiding Soni’s eager, clumsy hands to her breasts, squeezing his fingers over her nipples. “Do you want to watch, or do you want to fuck?” she asked him, her voice a low monotone.
“I… I can do both,” he panted, his hips already jerking against her.
On the bed, Suhu’s ride became more punishing. Her body slapped against his, a dull, meaty sound. She threw her head back, her tangled hair sticking to the sweat on her neck. She was chasing her own climax, using the corpse as a blunt instrument. Her fingers pinched and twisted at her own nipples, her eyes squeezed shut, imagining the cock inside her was hard, was alive, was punishing her for all of it.
“You fucking bastard,” she chanted, a broken whisper. “You weak, pathetic bastard.”
With a final, shuddering cry that was more rage than pleasure, she came. Her body clamped down violently on the dead, unfeeling flesh inside her. She collapsed forward onto Usman’s chest, her face pressed against the cold skin of his sternum. She lay there for a moment, listening for a heartbeat that wasn’t there.
Then she pushed herself up, dismounting with a wet, sucking sound. She looked down at herself, then at him. She reached for the sheet and wiped herself clean with a brutal efficiency.
Zarine, seeing her daughter finish, turned her full attention to Soni. She pushed him backward, out of the doorway, into the darker hallway. “Your turn,” she said, her voice still that eerie calm. “But quietly. And quickly.”
She didn’t lead him to another room. She bent him over the same wicker chair Usman had occupied less than an hour before. She yanked her pajama pants down to her ankles and leaned over, gripping the arms of the chair. “Now,” she commanded.
Soni needed no further invitation. He positioned himself behind her, his hands gripping her wide hips. He was grunting, animal-like, as he pushed into her. Zarine was still slick from Usman, and Soni slid in easily, burying his fat cock in her with a single, grateful thrust.
“Oh, yes, bhabhi, yes,” he slurred, his eyes rolling toward the bedroom door, where Suhu was now straightening her clothes, ignoring them completely.
Zarine took his pounding without a sound, her face expressionless. Her mind was elsewhere. Calculating. The body. The story. The fat, stupid man currently fucking her was a witness, but a manageable one. His arousal, his complicity, was his leash. She used her muscles to tighten around him, wringing a gasp from his throat.
“You saw nothing tonight, Soni,” she said, her voice steady even as his body slammed into hers. “You came for chai. Usman had a heart attack. He was an old man. It was tragic.”
“Yes, yes, heart attack,” he babbled, his rhythm faltering. “So tragic. Oh, fuck, bhabhi, you’re so tight…”
“You will help us,” she continued, clenching around him again, driving him toward his climax. “When the time comes. You will be here. You will be the respectable friend who found him.”
“Anything, I will do anything,” he whimpered. His thrusts became jerky, desperate. He came with a choked cry, spilling into her, his heavy weight sagging against her back.
Zarine waited until he was soft, then pushed him off. She pulled her pants up, buttoned her top. She looked past him, into the bedroom.
Suhu was standing by the bed, looking down at Usman’s body. She had pulled his pajamas back up, closed his eyes with her fingertips. She looked, for a moment, like a child again.
Then the moment passed. She turned to her mother, her gaze meeting Zarine’s in the dark hallway. No words were needed. The pact was signed in blood and semen and silent understanding.
“We need to call Omar,” Suhu said, her voice clear and shockingly normal. “And then we need to call the doctor. And a funeral home.”
Zarine nodded. She looked at Soni, who was cowering now, tucking himself away, the enormity of his actions beginning to dawn on him. “Make more chai, Soni,” she instructed, her tone that of the lady of the house. “It will be a long night. And remember… you were here for chai.”
She walked into the bedroom, past the bed, and began to straighten the covers.