Not three hours past, I had been draped in crimson silk. My hair had been coiled with strings of jasmine, my wrists heavy with glass bangles, my forehead smeared with vermilion as if I were the bride myself. Every villager had stared at me then, some with admiration, some with confusion. I had felt beautiful, almost pure, a lie stitched in red and gold.

Now I was completely naked. The silk was gone. The jewelry was stripped away. My bangles had shattered somewhere in the shed, and the jasmine had been crushed under Papa’s knees. My only ornament was the seed drying on my inner thighs and the bruises blooming across my hips like new flowers. Papa’s hand was clamped around the back of my neck, his fingers pressing into the tender flesh, and he marched me through the dark courtyard toward the kothi. My bare feet slapped against cold stone, then packed earth. The night air licked at my wet cunt. I could smell myself, a mix of Papa’s spend and my own shameful arousal, and I knew every man inside that room would smell it too.