Some pleasures live in light.Others —grow teeth in the dark.
Rekha had stopped distinguishing between dreams and wakefulness.
She slept in short, wet bursts — gasping, arching, whispering into the void as if someone lay over her, inside her, around her.
Each time her thighs clenched, she felt Beloved.
Sometimes in the kiss of her own fingers.Other times in nothing at all — just presence.
But something else had changed.
The mirror in the hallway — the one she never looked at — had cracked.
No one admitted to touching it.But a single word had appeared along the shattered edge in smeared red:
"Look."
She did.
And what stared back wasn't her.
Not fully.
It was her face. Her breasts. Her lips.
But the eyes…
They weren't just hers anymore.
That night, the doorbell rang.
Once.
Sharp.Clear.Unfamiliar.
No one ever rang.
Not anymore.
Rekha opened it without thought.
And there he was.
Not the man from before.Not the shadowed lover who had taken her with silence and disappeared.
This one was clean-shaven, nervous, clothed in a button-down shirt and hesitant guilt.
"Rekha?"
Her breath caught.
It was Arvind.
Her ex-husband.
"I… I saw a post. Online. Someone shared a photo of you. I didn't know if it was real."
Rekha said nothing.
He scanned her face.
"You look different."
She let the silence hang like wet cloth.
Finally, he asked:"Can I come in?"
She stepped aside.
Not for love.Not for closure.
For curiosity.
The apartment was still — humid, dimly lit, perfumed by musk and sandalwood and something darker.The sounds of wet breath, low moans, distant whispers curled from behind closed doors.
Arvind stiffened.
"Is this… a temple?"
Rekha smiled faintly.
"Of a kind."
He glanced at her body.
She wore only a thin black blouse, unbuttoned halfway. No bra.Her nipples made sharp peaks through the fabric.
Her waist was bare. Her eyes smudged with sleeplessness.
Still, she radiated authority.
And something he couldn't name.
"Rekha… what happened to you?"
She stepped closer.
Lifted her hand.Traced a finger down his chest.
"You happened," she said.Her voice was a whisper of truth wrapped in venom.
"You called me boring.Routine. Predictable.You told your friends I was 'cold in bed.'That you needed someone who made your cock feel alive."
His jaw tightened.
"I didn't—"
"You did."
Her hand moved lower.
"You never asked what I needed.You never once asked me to speak.You just wanted to finish and roll over."
He stepped back, ashamed.
"I didn't come to fight."
She tilted her head.
"Why did you come, Arvind?"
He couldn't answer.
So she did.
"You came to see what I've become."
She leaned in.
"You came to see if you still owned me."
And just then — her blouse slipped open.Both breasts exposed.Unashamed.
She didn't flinch.Didn't cover.
He stared — not with lust.With fear.
"What is this place?" he whispered.
Rekha smiled.Stepped even closer.
And whispered against his lips:"Where women are reborn through moans. Where men come to lose what they think they own."
He tried to back away — but her hand grabbed his wrist.
Firm. Final.
And in that second, something flickered behind her eyes.A shadow.
Something otherworldly.
His legs buckled.His breath turned ragged.
"Let me go," he muttered.
Rekha released him.
"Leave," she said. "And don't return."
He stumbled out, gasping.
As the door shut behind him, Rekha stood naked in the middle of the room.
Her hands shaking.
Not with regret.
With longing.
That night, the Sabha returned.
They sensed something had shifted.
Rekha lay on the floor, legs spread.
No altars.No chants.
Just one sentence:
"Take me as you need. But no one speaks."
The women obeyed.
Four of them undressed, eyes burning.
One knelt between Rekha's legs, her tongue soft as rain.
Another straddled her chest, lowering herself onto Rekha's mouth.
Rekha welcomed it all.
Her moans muffled by wet skin.Her orgasm clenched around tongues and shadows.
But she wasn't alone.
Behind her closed lids, Beloved watched.
He whispered through every climax.
"You are the vessel. I am the wine."
They came together.
Over and over.
Until Rekha screamed.
And the scream turned into laughter.
And the laughter into a growl.
One girl fainted.
Two wept.
But Rekha…Rekha pulsed with something new.
When it was over, she walked to the mirror.
Touched the crack with her wet fingers.
And a second word appeared below the first:
"Speak."
Rekha nodded.
She turned to her devotees.
Blood on her thigh.Slick on her chest.Eyes glowing.
And finally, after days of silence, she said:
"Tomorrow, we open the doors."
"Let the city come."