The afternoon heat had baked the walls of the Verma house until even the geckos stopped their clicking. I had spent the morning simmering in my own slickness, the memory of Papaji’s gnarled fingers digging into my hips as I rode his face still humming in my clit like a plucked string. My body was a traitor, always wet, always wanting. A bath seemed the only cure. Steam to wash away the scent of the old man’s spit, hot water to soothe the ache between my legs that no amount of clandestine fucking seemed to quench.

I twisted the tap in my en-suite bathroom, the one Rohan had proudly shown off during our house tour before the wedding. "Western-style, fully modern," he had chirped. Now I used it to scrub away the evidence of his father's tongue.