Coming home, and finding it smaller than the garden you just walked around- I don’t know how you handle it.

The bulb looks dimmer today. Is it me? I’ve spent too much time in a box to know the magic of the seven colours.

Speaking of magic, you blinked most of your tears away for the first time in the rickshaw. I knew it was a matter of patience. Sooner or later, you would develop thick eyelids. And the past few years have given you plenty of practice.

Take care of your groceries later; you have a blackmail to sort out.

A tremor in those palms. The very palms that become immovable as marble, untraceable as river water when you play the piano. Don’t worry; blackmail is a good enough reason to infuse fear in them. Personally, I liked you afraid.

Steady does it; you don’t want to rip it at the fold.

Don’t stop. Cinematic pauses are strictly cinema-only.

Almost-

there. Not too bad having your worst fears proven, is it?

It’s him. You can feel every letter drip with his drawl.

He’s asking for one last encounter, or he’ll- I don’t even see how you were naïve enough to let him record your little kinky interaction. Then again, he wasn’t exactly smart either. He held the camera at eye level, so it doesn’t really show your best- attributes. It does, however, reveal enough to satisfy the fetishes of leg-men, lingerie-men, earring-men, saree-men, riding-crop-men, brui… you get the point.

This is not play, Nisha. It’s him. It’s me.

Here we go. A tinge of salty moistness. Give me a couple of days, and I swear I’ll learn to tell sweat apart from tear.