The morning after felt different this time.
Not like guilt.Not like a hangover of skin and shame.It felt like clarity.
Rekha stood in front of the mirror, naked, brushing her wet hair back from her face. The towel lay forgotten on the chair. She watched the droplets slide down her collarbone, tracing quiet rivers along her skin.
There was no hurry to cover herself anymore.
She no longer felt like a woman who had to hide.
Ashok was out early for a site inspection. That meant silence — the kind that stretched, unbothered, through the house.
Rekha walked barefoot through the flat, made her own breakfast for once — poha and strong filter coffee, not the diet toast and tea Ashok always preferred.She sat cross-legged on the balcony floor, hair still wet, wearing only a faded cotton slip that clung to her like memory.
Downstairs, the traffic buzzed like an afterthought.
And across the complex, behind the frosted glass, she knew he was awake.
Her phone buzzed.She didn't rush to check it.
A minute later, another message.
Ishan: What are you doing right now?
She smiled. Sipped her coffee.
Rekha: Sitting still. Thinking about nothing.
Ishan: That sounds impossible.
Rekha: You made it possible.
There was a pause.
Then:
Ishan: I want to see you again.
Rekha: I didn't go anywhere.
Ishan: No. I want to see you as you are. Now. Without the curtain.
Her pulse thudded.
Without hesitation, she stood and stepped into the sunlight.
She didn't look around to check who might be watching.
She didn't care.
She stood on her balcony, her body outlined beneath her thin slip, her shoulders squared, eyes locked on his window.
It took ten seconds.
The curtain shifted.
She didn't wave.He didn't blink.
They simply stood, connected by glass and distance and something older than either of them wanted to admit.
She turned and went back inside.
Later that afternoon, she opened the cupboard where old sarees were stacked. The untouched silks. The chiffons from another life.
She touched them slowly — colours she hadn't worn in years. Bright ones. Bold ones. The kind that didn't belong to a woman who lived like a shadow.
She chose a scarlet one.
Not for anyone else.
Just for her.
She wrapped it without a blouse. Just the folds around her chest, tight and firm, skin against silk.
She stared at herself again.
This time, she didn't look for flaws.
She looked for hunger.
And found it.
That evening, Ishan didn't text. Didn't call. Didn't knock.
Rekha waited on the balcony anyway.
She waited without waiting — no expectation, no restlessness.
And when nothing came, she didn't feel rejection.
She felt her own presence.
And that was enough.
The next morning, there was a knock on the door.
Not the bell. Just a single knock.
She opened it, heartbeat steady.
It was Ishan.
He didn't speak. Just stood there, breath slightly fast, eyes unreadable.
She moved aside to let him in.
He stepped in, barefoot, like he belonged there.
She closed the door behind him.
Neither spoke.
The silence wasn't awkward.It was anticipation.
He walked to her slowly, hands in his pockets. He stopped inches away from her.
"You're different now," he said.
She nodded. "Yes."
"I don't know what to call it."
"Don't name it. Just feel it."
He touched her cheek.
His fingers lingered on the curve of her jaw, then slid down her neck, grazing the edge of her blouse.
Rekha didn't move.
"Tell me to stop," he whispered.
"No," she said. "Not today."
They didn't undress in a hurry.
She led him to the living room, not the bedroom. She sat on the couch, legs tucked to one side, and watched him unbutton his shirt.
Every inch of his skin revealed felt like a slow unveiling of her own permission.
When he knelt before her, he didn't grab.
He reached.
Lifted her saree, layer by layer, like unwrapping something sacred.
And when he kissed her knee, she moaned — not from the touch, but from the reverence.
They made love with the curtains open.
The afternoon sun lit the space where their bodies met — hips, hands, mouths.
She rode him this time.
Took her time.
Moved slow.
She kept her eyes open the whole time, watching his face twist beneath her, his hands gripping her thighs like he was holding onto gravity.
When she came, it wasn't loud.
It was deep — a quiet quake that started from her belly and ended in her spine.
She collapsed onto his chest, breathing heavy, slick with sweat.
Neither said a word.
Afterwards, they lay on the floor.
No fan. No air-conditioning. Just the heat of skin and breath.
He brushed her hair from her eyes.
"You scare me," he said.
"Why?"
"Because I thought I was teaching you something."
She laughed. "And now?"
"I think you're the one undoing me."
That night, after he left, Rekha didn't clean the room.
She left the scent of them in the air. The heat on the floor. The folds in the sheets. The used cup of coffee he hadn't finished.
Ashok came home late.
Tired. Irritable. Complained about traffic. About politics.
She nodded, replied when needed, made his dinner.
But her mind was elsewhere.
Not on Ishan.Not on guilt.
On herself.
On how it felt to breathe in her own name again.
Later, in the mirror, she saw it.
The change.
Not in her body. That had always been hers.
In her eyes.
She was no longer the woman who waited.
No longer the woman who folded herself to fit into silences.
She was the storm that had arrived quietly.And now refused to leave.