When Lust Catches Fire — Chapter 4
Chapter 4
For the next forty-five minutes, Aniruddh and Dr Sen discussed the possibility of her meeting Madhuri.
Dr Sen did not refuse outright. She listened as he tried to explain why he felt he could not bring himself to speak to his wife, and why he had begun to believe that a conversation between the two women might be the only way forward. But she was equally clear about her reservations.
“I want you to think carefully about what you’re asking me to do, Aniruddh,” she said. “Madhuri is your wife, not a patient who has come to me seeking help. She hasn’t chosen to be part of these sessions, and I don’t want you to use my involvement as a way of avoiding a conversation that belongs to the two of you.”
“I understand that,” he said quickly. “I’m not trying to avoid it. I just don’t know how to begin.”
“But you are asking me to begin it for you.”
He looked down at his hands.
“I suppose I am.”
Dr Sen let the admission sit between them for a moment. She had heard him explain his fears many times now. She listened patiently, but she did not appear convinced that allowing someone else to carry the burden would make the eventual conversation any easier.
“Think about it once more,” she advised him. “I would still prefer you to find a way to speak to Madhuri yourself. Even if you cannot tell her everything immediately, you could begin by telling her that there is something personal you have been struggling with and that you need her help to understand it.”
Aniruddh nodded. He knew this was sensible advice. He also knew that, left to himself, he might spend another month preparing for a conversation that never happened.
By the time the session ended, they had agreed that he would make one more sincere attempt to speak to Madhuri. If he failed again, they would revisit the question of whether Dr Sen could meet her.
He left the bungalow with the familiar mixture of relief and unease. He had managed to postpone the decision, but only for a little while.
This time, he did try.
He waited for an evening when Ishaan had finished dinner and was occupied with his school things. He considered speaking to Madhuri when they were alone in the kitchen, but she was busy preparing for a meeting the following morning. Later, when they went to bed, she rested her head against his shoulder and began telling him about a difficult conversation she had had with a client. He listened, asked her questions, and even made her laugh.
The moment passed.
He tried again a few days later. He thought he might speak to her on a Sunday morning, when there was no school bus to catch and neither of them had to rush out for work. But they spent the morning dealing with ordinary household matters, and by the time they finally sat down with their cups of tea, the opportunity seemed to have disappeared again.
Each time, he told himself that he would try when she was less tired, when he was less distracted, or when they had enough time to talk properly. Each time, some small practical consideration offered him a reason to wait.
The truth was that he could not bring himself to risk the expression he imagined on her face.
When he returned to Dr Sen for his next appointment, he described his attempts, explaining how he had rehearsed the conversation in his head but found himself unable to begin it in reality.
He expected her to challenge him again. He was prepared to hear, once more, that he was asking her to solve a problem he needed to face himself.
Instead, after listening carefully, she agreed to consider meeting Madhuri.
Aniruddh was surprised by how readily she accepted the possibility this time. He had anticipated a longer discussion, perhaps another warning about the implications of involving his wife without first telling her what the matter was about. Dr Sen still made it clear that the conversation would need to be handled thoughtfully, but she seemed to recognise that his repeated attempts had brought him no closer to speaking on his own.
They discussed how the meeting might be arranged. A late Friday afternoon, two weeks away, seemed the most practical option. It would allow Madhuri to come to Koregaon Park after work, and it would give them the weekend to talk privately afterwards.
Aniruddh decided that he would take Ishaan to stay with the grandparents that Friday. Both sets of parents were close by, and they were always happy to have their grandson with them. He could drop Ishaan off, make sure he had everything he needed for the night, and return home without having to manage the usual evening routine.
It was all very straightforward when they discussed it in Dr Sen’s office.
The difficulty began when Aniruddh had to tell Madhuri.
For the next two weeks, he carried the knowledge of the appointment around with him. He thought about it while checking drawings at the office, while driving between meetings, and while sitting beside Madhuri at dinner. The closer the date came, the more difficult it became to imagine how he would explain what was happening.
He could not simply tell her that he wanted her to meet his therapist. Madhuri would immediately ask why, and he would have to answer. If he tried to offer a vague explanation, she would recognise that he was holding something back. She knew him too well to accept an incomplete answer without questioning it.
On the other hand, if he told her the truth, there would be no going back.
By Thursday evening, with less than a day remaining before the appointment, he had run out of time to postpone the conversation.
They were at home. Ishaan had finished his dinner, and Madhuri had changed out of her work clothes. She was checking something on her laptop when Aniruddh came and stood beside her.
“Madhuri, can I ask you something?”
She looked up at once. There was something about his voice that made her close the laptop halfway.
“Of course. What is it?”
He had rehearsed the words several times during the drive home. Now that she was looking directly at him, they seemed less convincing than they had in his head.
“Would you be able to meet someone tomorrow afternoon?”
“Someone?” she asked. “Who?”
“Dr Sen. I’ve been seeing her for a while.”
Madhuri’s expression changed immediately. She moved the laptop aside and turned towards him fully.
“Aniruddh, what’s going on? Are you all right?”
“I’m okay,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady. “I’ve been going to see Dr Sen for some time now, and we feel it’s time for her to talk to you.”
The words sounded rehearsed because they were. He had spent so long preparing them that he could deliver them without explaining anything he was actually feeling.
Madhuri stared at him for a moment.
“You’ve been seeing a therapist?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“A while.”
“And you’re telling me this now?”
He felt his chest tighten. He had wanted to avoid precisely this sequence of questions, yet he had known she would ask them. There was no reasonable way for her not to.
“Please, Madhuri. I’d rather you met her first.”
“Met her first?” Her voice remained controlled, but her concern had deepened. “Aniruddh, you’ve just told me that you’ve been seeing someone for a while and that she needs to talk to me. What am I supposed to make of that?”
“Please just meet her tomorrow,” he said. “We can talk about it afterwards.”
She searched his face, trying to understand what he was not telling her. He could see that she was worried, and that made his own discomfort worse. He wanted to reassure her. He wanted to tell her that he was not ill, that nothing had happened to Ishaan, that there was no financial or professional crisis he had been hiding from her.
But none of those explanations was the truth, and he could not bring himself to offer the real one.
“Aniruddh,” she said more softly, “tell me what’s going on.”
He looked at her, then away.
“Please, Madhuri. I am asking you to trust me on this. Just meet Dr Sen tomorrow. After that, I’ll explain everything.”
It was an unfair request. He knew that even as he made it. He was asking the woman who had trusted him since childhood to walk into an appointment without knowing why she had been summoned, while he kept the very information she needed from her.
He could only hope that she understood how frightened he was, even if she had no idea what had frightened him. After another moment, she agreed to meet Dr Sen the following afternoon.
Aniruddh felt relief, but it was brief. He had secured her agreement without having to disclose the secret, and yet he had made the eventual revelation more difficult. Now Madhuri would arrive at the clinic expecting an explanation, and he had no control over how she would react once she heard it.
Friday arrived.
Around midday, Aniruddh collected Ishaan and took him to stay with the grandparents. The boy was pleased with the arrangement. Time with his grandparents usually meant being allowed an extra helping of his favourite food, having someone find the board game he wanted to play, and being indulged in ways that were rarely possible on a school night.
Aniruddh helped him settle in, checked that his school things were in order for the following week, and exchanged the usual practical instructions with the grandparents. He then went across to Madhuri’s parents’ home nearby, where Ishaan was greeted with the same enthusiasm.
Everything about the afternoon felt painfully ordinary. The familiar streets, the conversations about what Ishaan had eaten, the reminders that he should not stay up too late — all of it belonged to the secure, predictable life Aniruddh and Madhuri had built together.
He found himself wondering how that same life would look to Madhuri by the end of the afternoon.
Once he was back in the car, he began checking the time repeatedly. He knew when her appointment was due to start. He could picture her arriving at Dr Sen’s bungalow with her handbag and laptop tote, probably still wearing her office clothes, expecting to be told why her husband had arranged the meeting.
As he drove through the city, he watched the minutes pass on the dashboard clock. Traffic slowed him near an intersection, and he tapped his fingers against the steering wheel before forcing himself to stop.
Somewhere across Pune, Madhuri would now be sitting in Dr Sen’s consulting room.
He imagined her listening as the doctor began to explain the private thoughts he had been unable to share with his own wife. Thoughts that had once seemed merely strange to him now felt far more disturbing, almost like evidence of some deep defect he had spent a lifetime concealing.
He pictured Madhuri’s face as she tried to make sense of what she was hearing. Would she be bewildered? Angry? Would she wonder why he had not trusted her enough to tell her himself?
He had wanted Dr Sen to take the burden off him. But as the car moved through the familiar streets towards Prabhat Road, he began to understand that whatever happened in that room, he would still have to face his wife afterwards.
And he had no idea what she would see when she looked at him then.
*
Aniruddh returned to the flat with about twenty minutes to spare before Madhuri’s appointment with Dr Sen was due to end. He had spent most of the drive back wondering what was happening inside that bungalow in Koregaon Park. He kept checking the time, though he knew perfectly well that looking at the dashboard clock every few minutes would not make the afternoon pass any faster.
He had decided to prepare dinner himself. It was a small thing, and he knew that cooking a meal would not undo what he had arranged, but he wanted the house to feel welcoming when Madhuri returned. He wanted her to walk in and find him doing something familiar and ordinary, something that might remind her of the life they had built together before the afternoon had complicated it.
He had thought about what to make and settled on a proper dinner rather than anything too elaborate. He wanted it to be something she liked, something that showed he had paid attention. As he worked in the kitchen, he found himself listening for the lift in the corridor and the sound of footsteps outside their door.
He checked his phone twice. There was no message from Madhuri.
At first, he told himself that this was a good sign. Perhaps the conversation was going well. Perhaps Dr Sen had managed to explain things in a way that Aniruddh himself would never have been able to. But the longer the silence continued, the more his imagination began to work against him. He pictured Madhuri sitting in the consulting room, listening to the details of his private thoughts. He imagined her asking questions about him, about their marriage, about the man she had known since childhood.
He wondered what Dr Sen had told her about the way he had behaved. Had she explained how long he had struggled with the fantasies? Had she told her that he had repeatedly failed to find the courage to speak to her himself? Had she described how he had eventually asked the therapist to take his place?
That last thought was particularly uncomfortable. Whatever Madhuri thought about the fantasies themselves, she would have every right to be angry about the way he had handled them.
He tried to concentrate on the dinner.
It was nearly an hour after the appointment should have begun to finish when he finally heard the front door open.
Then came the familiar sound of Madhuri’s heels against the polished teakwood floor.
Aniruddh looked towards the kitchen entrance. He could not tell anything from her footsteps. They sounded the same as they always did when she came home from work — measured, unhurried, with the slight pause she made while putting down her handbag and taking in the state of the house.
She walked into the kitchen a moment later.
For an instant, he simply looked at her. She was dressed as she had been when she left for work, her hair still neatly arranged, her expression composed. There was nothing outwardly different about her. She looked like his wife returning home after an ordinary Friday afternoon.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi.”
He moved towards her and kissed her briefly. She returned the kiss without hesitation, and for one hopeful second he wondered whether the meeting had been less difficult than he had feared.
“I’ve made dinner,” he said. “Would you like some wine?”
“Yes, please.”
He poured her a glass and handed it to her. She accepted it, took a small sip, and thanked him.
She was behaving normally. That was almost worse than if she had come home visibly upset.
Aniruddh stood beside the counter, pretending to check something on the stove. He wanted to ask her what had happened inside Dr Sen’s consulting room. He wanted to know what the doctor had told her, what Madhuri had said in response, and whether she had left the appointment thinking that her husband was a stranger after all.
But he could not find a way to ask without sounding desperate.
Finally, he turned towards her.
“So, did you — ”
“Later, Aniruddh,” she interrupted gently but firmly. “After dinner, please.”
He stopped.
“All right.”
“I just want to change and settle down for a bit.”
“Of course.”
She picked up her wine glass and left the kitchen.
He watched her go, feeling the brief hope he had allowed himself drain away. She had not raised her voice or accused him of anything. She had simply postponed the conversation. Yet he knew from the way she had looked at him that she was not going to forget what had happened that afternoon.
He finished preparing the meal and set the table. He took a little extra care with the arrangement, placing everything neatly and making sure there was nothing left on the kitchen counter that needed to be put away. It was the kind of attention he usually gave when he wanted to make an ordinary evening feel special.
When Madhuri returned, she had changed into comfortable clothes and had tied her hair back loosely. She looked less like the woman who had spent the day in corporate meetings and more like the Madhuri he knew from home.
They sat down to dinner.
For the first few minutes, the conversation was almost reassuringly ordinary. They spoke about work. Madhuri mentioned a difficult client discussion and something that needed to be completed before the following week. Aniruddh told her about a project review at the office and a minor disagreement with one of his colleagues. They spoke briefly about Ishaan and whether he would be allowed to stay up late at his grandparents’ house.
Madhuri asked whether Aniruddh had remembered to leave Ishaan’s school things with them. He told her he had checked everything before returning home.
“Good,” she said. “Otherwise, we would have got a call at seven in the morning.”
He smiled faintly.
“Yes, I know.”
She smiled too, and for a moment they sounded exactly like themselves.
But the subject they were avoiding remained present in everything they said. Aniruddh found himself listening for some indication of her mood in the pauses between sentences. He watched the way she held her glass, the brief moments when she looked down at her plate, and the way she continued eating without appearing distracted.
He had known her for thirty-one years. He had always been proud of how well he could read her expressions, how often he could tell what she was thinking before she said anything. Now, that familiarity offered him no comfort. He could not tell whether her composure meant she was calm, angry, or simply waiting until they were alone.
He made sure her wine glass did not remain empty for long. Whenever she finished a little, he offered to pour more. He was conscious that he was doing it, but he did not stop himself. He wanted her to relax. He wanted the atmosphere to soften enough that they could talk without the conversation becoming a confrontation.
By the time they finished dinner, Madhuri seemed more at ease. She was speaking normally and had even laughed at one of his remarks. Aniruddh allowed himself to hope that the evening might not be as difficult as he had imagined.
He cleared the table and carried the dishes into the kitchen. He was rinsing the last plate when he heard her behind him.
“Aniruddh.”
He turned.
“Let’s talk.”
She had finished her wine and was standing near the entrance to the small study. She did not look angry, but there was a steadiness in her expression that made him put down the plate carefully.
“All right,” he said.
He dried his hands and followed her into the study.
She sat down on the sofa, placing her empty glass on the side table. Aniruddh took the chair opposite her, then changed his mind and sat at the other end of the sofa. The distance between them was not large, but he was suddenly very conscious of it.
Madhuri looked at him for several seconds before speaking.
“Do you remember when we were in the fourth standard and you broke my bicycle?”
Aniruddh felt his stomach tighten. He had not expected her to begin there.
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“Of course I remember.”
“You knocked it over while you were trying to show off, didn’t you? The handle got bent, and you tried to hide it behind the staircase in our society.”
He remembered the incident clearly. They had been children, living only a short distance from each other, and the staircase had been their favourite hiding place whenever they wanted to avoid the grown-ups. He had been frightened that her father would find out and complain to his parents. He had kept insisting that the bicycle had somehow fallen by itself until Madhuri had confronted him.
“I told you then that I wasn’t really upset about the bicycle,” she continued. “I was upset because you kept lying to me. Do you remember what you promised?”
He nodded slowly.
“I promised I wouldn’t hide things from you again.”
“You crossed your heart and promised me.”
“Yes.”
She looked at him, and he felt the years between that staircase and this room collapse into a single, uncomfortable moment. He remembered the seriousness with which they had made promises as children, the absolute certainty that the other person would keep them. Back then, their world had been small enough that a broken bicycle and a lie could be the worst things that happened between them.
They had grown up since then. They had built a marriage, raised a child, and made decisions that affected far more than their own happiness. Yet Madhuri had reached back into their shared childhood and found a promise he had never imagined she would need to invoke again.
“You broke that promise,” she said.
“Madhu, I — ”
He stopped. He had no answer that did not sound like an excuse.
“I…” he tried again.
Nothing came.
He lowered his eyes towards the floor, ashamed not only of what he had hidden from her but of the fact that he was once again doing exactly what he had done as a child — looking away and hoping that someone else would find a way to repair the damage.
Madhuri waited for him to say something. When he did not, she continued.
“Do you have any idea what it feels like to hear about your husband’s private thoughts from a stranger?”
Her voice was not loud. That made the question more difficult to bear.
“Do you know how embarrassing it is? I go into that woman’s consulting room expecting to be told that something is wrong at home, or that you’ve been struggling with something you couldn’t discuss with me. And then I’m sitting there listening to someone I barely know explain what goes on in your head.”
She paused, keeping her eyes on him.
“I have known you since we were four years old, Aniruddh. Four. I know your family, your habits, your fears, the things you get anxious about. We went through school and college together. We built our careers, got married, had Ishaan, and made a home. And when something so personal comes up in your life, you decide that a stranger should explain it to me.”
“Madhu, I’m sorry.”
It was all he could manage. He could think of a dozen things he wanted to tell her, but none of them seemed adequate. He wanted her to know that he had not gone to Dr Sen because he did not trust her. He had gone because he feared her judgment more than he feared carrying the secret alone. He understood how contradictory that sounded. He also understood that his fear did not excuse what he had done.
Madhuri drew a breath and looked at him more carefully.
“I’m going to ask you something, and I want you to be honest with me.”
He nodded.
“This is so unlike you. You have been behaving strangely, you’ve been seeing a therapist without telling me, and now you’ve arranged for her to tell me something that you couldn’t tell me yourself.”
She paused.
“Are you having an affair?”
“No!” Aniruddh sat forward immediately. “No, Madhu. Absolutely not.”
The answer came so quickly that he nearly stumbled over his own words.
“I’m not having an affair. There is nobody else. I haven’t been seeing anyone, and I haven’t done anything behind your back in that sense. Please believe me.”
She studied his face.
“Dr Sen didn’t think you were,” she said. “But I told her I was going to ask you myself.”
Aniruddh felt a small measure of relief, followed at once by the uncomfortable realisation that he was now dependent on what the doctor had told his wife.
“What did she tell you?” he asked.
He hated that question as soon as it left his mouth. It made him sound as though he were trying to find out how much information he could safely admit to, rather than speaking honestly with the woman he loved. But he genuinely did not know what had been discussed, and the uncertainty was making him increasingly anxious.
Madhuri picked up her glass, remembered that it was empty, and set it down again.
“Some things that were very reassuring,” she said, “and some things that were quite surprising.”
She allowed a pause before continuing.
“She said you love me very much. That the affection and commitment you have for me were obvious from the way you spoke about our marriage. She said you had come to her because you were distressed by thoughts and feelings you were having, and that you had been trying to understand them rather than act on them.”
Aniruddh watched her closely.
“Then she explained what those feelings were,” Madhuri continued, “and why you might be having them.”
He swallowed.
“Did it make sense?”
It was a desperate question, though he tried to make it sound like a reasonable one. If Madhuri could understand the thoughts, perhaps she would not condemn him for having them. Perhaps the fact that he had been frightened and confused by them himself would matter to her.
Madhuri looked away briefly before answering.
“I understood what she was trying to explain,” she said. “That doesn’t mean I liked hearing it.”
She settled back against the sofa.
“She spoke about some theories concerning evolutionary behaviour and sexual attraction. The way she explained it, some men can find the idea of another man being attracted to their partner disturbing and exciting at the same time. She talked about monogamy, sperm competition, and the way certain fantasies can develop even in men who love their wives and have no intention of being unfaithful.”
Aniruddh listened carefully. He recognised the territory. He had read about some of these theories himself and had spent considerable time trying to fit his own experience into them. He felt a flicker of relief that Madhuri had heard the explanation from Dr Sen rather than having to listen to him attempt it in the middle of an already difficult conversation.
“She told me that some of these responses may be connected to deeply ingrained instincts,” Madhuri went on. “She said you might not understand them yourself, which is why you’ve been so distressed. She also said that fantasies like these are more common than people generally admit.”
She spoke in a measured way, almost as if she were recounting the conclusions of a meeting at work. Aniruddh wondered whether the calmness was helping her organise what she had heard or whether she was deliberately keeping her emotions in check.
He was relieved that she seemed to have understood at least part of the explanation. But beneath that relief, he could feel the weight of her disappointment.
“Good,” he began cautiously. “I mean, I’m glad she was able to explain it. I’m not sure I could ever have explained it to you in the same way. Every time I tried to think about how to begin, I — ”
“Aniruddh, don’t even try.”
Her voice was firm, and he stopped at once.
“I’m not asking you to give me a presentation on evolutionary psychology. I have heard the explanation. I understand what she was trying to tell me.”
She held his gaze.
“That doesn’t make the way you’ve handled this all right.”
He lowered his eyes.
“Okay,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
He had retreated into silence again. It was an old instinct, one he had relied on for years whenever he felt exposed. If he said little enough, perhaps he would avoid making the situation worse.
Madhuri watched him for a moment.
“Get me some more wine.”
He was on his feet almost immediately.
“Yes. Of course.”
He went to the kitchen, brought the bottle back, and poured her another glass. He also offered her some more, but she shook her head. He set the bottle on the side table and sat down again, this time closer to the edge of the sofa.
The questions were still crowding his mind.
“How did the meeting end?” he asked. “You were there for quite a while.”
Madhuri took a small sip before replying.
“We discussed what to do about you.”
He looked at her.
“And?”
She glanced towards him, and the corner of her mouth moved slightly.
“It took her a long time to get there. She tried to remain professional and discuss everything in clinical terms. But eventually, I think it became a conversation between two women about a husband who had managed to make an unnecessary mess of his own life.”
Aniruddh could not tell whether she was amused or angry. He sat forward a little more.
“And what did she say?”
Madhuri held the glass between both hands.
“Basically, she said that if I give you a little of what you’re looking for, I could get almost anything I want from you.”
For the first time that evening, a real smile began to appear on her face. She seemed to recognise it and tried to suppress it, but it remained in the slight movement of her lips.
Aniruddh stared at her, uncertain how to respond.
“That doesn’t sound very professional,” he said at last. “It sounds conspiratorial.”
“Are you serious?”
The smile disappeared.
“It serves you right, Aniruddh. You should have come to me in the first place. Your wife. The girl who grew up with you, who knew you before you knew how to behave like the perfect, respectable son. Instead, you went to a stranger and asked her to explain your thoughts to me.”
She shook her head.
“And after all that, I think I’ve been very fair to you.”
Her voice had risen slightly. Aniruddh felt himself shrink back into the sofa.
“I’m sorry,” he said again.
He knew there was no point in arguing. She was right about the central issue, and any attempt to defend himself would only confirm that he still did not understand the humiliation he had caused her.
Madhuri took another sip of wine and looked at him over the rim of the glass.
“There’s something else I want to know.”
He waited.
“Who are the men?”
Aniruddh felt the tension return to his shoulders.
“What men?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t understand. Dr Sen explained the nature of your fantasies, but she didn’t tell me who you imagine me being with. She said that was something I would have to ask you.”
For a brief moment, he considered being evasive. He thought about describing the men in vague terms or saying that they were merely people he had happened to notice. But Madhuri was looking directly at him, and he knew she would recognise an evasion immediately.
He took a breath.
“Gaurav, Rocky, and Veer,” he said at last.
He was conscious of how absurdly clinical his explanation sounded. He was listing the men as though he were describing people in an architectural brief, rather than admitting to his wife the people who had appeared in his private fantasies.
“You mean Gaurav Sahay?” she asked.
He nodded. “Yes. Gaurav, our friend. Rashmi’s husband. We see them often enough.”
“And Rocky, my personal trainer?”
“Yes.”
“And, Veer?”
Madhuri’s expression changed very slightly at the last name.
“Yes…” He hesitated. “Veer is the one I’ve been thinking about most recently.”
Madhuri studied him for a moment.
There were other men he had imagined from time to time, but they had never occupied his thoughts for long. He did not mention them. The three he had named were the ones who had stayed with him, each for a different reason.
Gaurav’s name carried the discomfort of familiarity. They shared friends, meals, conversations, and the easy assumptions of a social circle in which everyone knew everyone else’s family. Rocky occupied a different part of her life, one Aniruddh knew almost nothing about. Veer was different again: a senior executive from outside their usual social world, a man whose confidence and manner had caught Aniruddh’s attention even though they barely knew each other.
Madhuri listened without interrupting. She did not ask why those three men in particular had caught his attention. She did not express disgust, nor did she reassure him that she understood. She said nothing for a moment, her face giving away very little.
That lack of visible reaction made Aniruddh more nervous than a burst of anger might have done. He could not tell whether she was considering what he had said, judging him for it, or beginning to look at the men in question through an entirely different lens.
When he finished, she put her glass down.
“Thank you for telling me,” she said.
It was a simple sentence, and he could not tell what it meant.
For the rest of the evening, they stayed together in the sitting room, sipping wine and talking about other things. Gradually, the conversation moved towards familiar subjects. They discussed Ishaan, their plans for the following week, and a few things that needed to be done around the flat. Madhuri even laughed at something Aniruddh said, and he found himself laughing with her, grateful for the momentary return of their usual ease.
Her disappointment seemed to have receded. She was affectionate enough in her manner, and she did not return to the questions she had asked earlier. Aniruddh began to hope that the worst of the conversation was behind them.
Later, when they went to bed, he moved closer to her and reached for her in the familiar way he had done countless times over their marriage. He wanted to hold her. He wanted the ordinary reassurance of her body beside his, the closeness that had always made him feel that whatever difficulties they faced, they were still together.
Madhuri gently moved his hand away.
“Not tonight, Aniruddh.”
“Madhu…”
“I’m still very upset with you,” she said. “Don’t think that because we’ve talked about it, everything is all right.”
He withdrew his hand and lay back beside her.
For a while, neither of them spoke. The room was dark, and the familiar sounds of their home settled around them. Aniruddh could hear the faint hum of the air conditioner and the steady ticking of the clock outside the bedroom.
Madhuri lay facing away from him, not far enough to suggest that she wanted to leave, but far enough to make it clear that the conversation had not restored everything to normal.
He wanted to reach for her again. He wanted to apologise one more time, to explain that he had not meant to hurt her and that his fear had never been about doubting their marriage. But he knew that another apology would not repair the damage. She had heard his words. What she needed now was time, and perhaps the proof that he could learn to stop hiding behind his own fear.
So he remained where he was, looking into the darkness, aware that the woman who had known him longer than anyone else had finally been allowed to see a part of him he had spent months trying to conceal.
*
