Chapter 216: Chapter 216- First Blow to Loyalty

The public toilet block near the east pathway smelled like every public toilet in every Mumbai park had agreed, collectively, on a standard.

He was already there.

He had been there for approximately eleven seconds when Priya appeared from the path, slightly out of breath, her performance of the headache abandoned because there was nobody left to perform it for.

She stopped when she saw him.

Leaning against the wall beside the facilities block entrance, hands in his jacket pockets, looking at the dark tree line with the patient quality of someone who had been here for a while.

“’How—’”

“’I’m faster than I look,’” he said.

She looked at the entrance. Then at him.

“’What will you do next?,’” she said. Not a question. The specific, reading of the situation.

“’Eat you,’” he said.

Priya breathed.

He was looking at her.

The specific look. Not the assessment. The other one.

She had the lotus still.

She looked down at it.

He reached forward, his hand finding her wrist — not grabbing, the specific, warm weight of a hand at the inside of a wrist — and walked backward into the facility entrance, pulling her with him.

“’In public,’” she said. “’This is a public—’”

“’Come on,’” he said.

“’Raven—’”

“’She’s coming,’” he said. Simple. The specific, practical quality of someone pointing out a timeline.

She went.

The inside of the facility was — frozen.

The specific, exact frozen of the last time, the version she had encountered once before and had not been able to fully describe afterward. Not frozen like a photograph — the specific, occupied quality of it, the air moving through it at its usual temperature, the ambient sounds present. Just: the people in it not moving.

Three men. One at the sink, hands under the water, the water running but the man still. Two others in states of transit that had been paused.

And from one of the stalls at the far end: the specific, unmistakable sounds of a man experiencing what the pav bhaji had done to him, which the freezing did not apparently apply to, which Priya found both logical and deeply uncomfortable.

She did not look at the stall.

“’Is that—’”

“’Yes,’” he said.

“’That’s Vikram,’” she said.

“’Yes,’” he said.

“’He is literally—’”

“’Yes,’” he said. The specific, patient repetition of someone who has confirmed something three times and is prepared to confirm it a fourth.

He had walked to the end stall — not the occupied one, the stall beside it. The door open. He turned, leaning against the stall door frame, looking at her.

The purple eyes in the flat, fluorescent light of the facility. Not flattering — just honest. The specific, honest light that found the line of his jaw and the width of his shoulders and laid itself across them the way honest light did, and the jacket, and the specific, warm quality of the way he was looking at her.

“’Come here,’” he said.

“’This is insane,’” she said.

“’You walked in here voluntarily,’” he said.

“’You pulled me—’”

“’I put my hand on your wrist,’” he said. “’You walked.’”

She was standing three feet from him.

She looked at the lotus.

Then she stepped forward.

Inside the stall, the space was small — the specific, intimate compression of a small space with two people in it. He sat on the closed lid of the toilet — the specific, easy posture of someone making a throne of whatever was available — and looked up at her.

His hands, finding her hips. The specific, warm grip of them.

He unzipped.

The specific sound of it.

She looked down.

He was — she had known this, had the theoretical knowledge of it, had been three days in proximity to the full reality of it without direct contact. The direct contact of looking at it in a fluorescent-lit park toilet stall with Vikram’s groaning providing ambient sound from the adjacent stall was a different mode of knowing.

She looked at his face.

“’You’re going to make me—’” She stopped. The sentence had several endings and she was sorting through them.

“’Yes,’” he said. The warm, specific, patient quality of someone who has answered a question that hadn’t been fully asked because the full question was obvious.

She looked at his cock.

She pressed her lips together.

She was wearing her professional jacket and her heels and holding a lotus and the sum of all of this was — something she did not have a clean word for.

She went to her knees.

The floor of the stall — the specific, tile-floor cold of it, the slight give at the knees as she settled. Her skirt adjusting with the motion. Her hands, finding his thighs first, the warm fabric of his trousers, the specific reality of being at this level, looking up at him looking down at her.

His hand moved to her hair.

Not gripping. The specific, warm, proprietary weight of a hand resting at the crown of her head. The specific acknowledgment of position.

“’Good and make sure to call me as Vikram’” he said snapped his finger, as if freezing the sound of the real one beside him.

She breathed.

Then she leaned forward.

The lotus fell.

Outside.

Meera was walking fast.

Not running — she would not run in a park at five months pregnant because she was a sensible woman and she was not — there was nothing to run toward, because she had not seen what she thought she saw, because it was a crowd and the lights were amber and it was anyone’s jacket, it was anyone’s walk, it was—

The facilities block.

The men’s side.

She stood outside it.

The specific, impossible position of a woman standing outside a men’s toilet in a Mumbai park at eight-forty in the evening because she thought she had seen something she did not want to have seen.

She waited.

Men came out. Men went in. The specific, ordinary traffic of the facility.

She waited ten minutes.

Her hand on her belly. The specific, small circular motion.

She was not going in.

She was absolutely not going in.

The traffic from the facility had thinned — there was a gap, the specific, brief gap between one wave of visitors and the next.

She looked at the door.

She pushed it open.

Inside — the specific smell, the specific light. The sink area, currently unoccupied. The stalls. Most doors open.

She stood very still.

Then she heard it.

From the end stall — the farthest one from the door: the specific, muffled, particular sound of something she could not immediately identify because her brain was presenting several options and rejecting each one and cycling back to the beginning.

A woman’s sound. In a men’s toilet stall.

Muffled. Low. The specific, involuntary quality of a sound that was not being made for the purpose of being heard.

Meera stood in the center of the men’s toilet of a Mumbai park and looked at the closed stall door at the end.

She should leave.

She should turn around and go back to the Ferris wheel and find Raven and ask him to call Priya and let Vikram finish and go back to the gondola and never—

She walked to the stall.

The door had the specific, not-flush-to-the-floor gap of old tiled facilities. She stood beside it.

She looked at the floor beneath it.

Two sets of feet.

One: men’s shoes. Dark leather. Vikram’s shoes were dark leather. Vikram had dark leather shoes. So did many men.

Two: a woman’s heels. Dark. Two heels on the floor, pressed to the tile, toes curled under slightly.

From above: the sound.

Muffled. Low. The specific, wet, suppressed sound of—

She placed her hand on the wall.

She bent — slowly, carefully, the specific, careful motion of a five-months-pregnant woman bending toward the floor, one hand at the wall for balance. Her cheek, angling toward the gap.

The specific, limited view from floor level: the bottom third of the stall interior.

Two sets of legs. The men’s trousers — at the ankles, she could see. The shoes. Dark leather.

And a woman, her skirt adjusted, her knees on the tile, her back to the door, the specific, spread-knee posture of someone who was kneeling with intention rather than kneeling by accident, her body moving — not dramatically, but specifically, in the specific up-and-down rhythm of—

Meera straightened.

The specific, immediate uprighting of a spine that has received information and is relocating vertical.

Her hand on her belly.

The small, circular motion.

“Mmmh~~ V-Vikram…”

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