Seeing Gehna become an object of fun for a crew of random assholes was sickening enough, but the entertainment seemed to be taking an uglier turn. Eram headed towards the bar at a clip, adrenaline flooding his body.

‘Hey,’ he shouted. ‘Get away from her. The fuck you think you’re doing?’

The guy closest to Gehna took a step back. The three boys stood around looking confused while Eram pulled Gehna’s skirt back down to cover her legs.

‘Eram . . .?’ Gehna said, her pupils swimming. ‘So mad at you. So . . . so . . . so mad.’ She laughed. Eram helped her stand, not without difficulty, and her head flopped against his shoulder.

‘Relax, man.’ It was the guy who had been touching Gehna. ‘We were just having some fun. She was totally into it. C’mon, stay. Have a drink with us.’ He winked at Eram. ‘There’s more than enough to go around.’

He wasn’t talking about the drinks.

Had Eram not been holding Gehna’s limp form up, he would have decked the guy. ‘Listen to me, you rape-y motherfucker. She wasn’t “totally into it”. She’s sweet and funny and six months pregnant but, even if she wasn’t any of those things, if she was the skankiest whore in Calangute, she still wouldn’t be totally into it because she’s drunk. Look at her. Does she look like she’s in any state to decide what’s good for her right now? Get the hell out of my way.’

They got the hell out of his way.

Eram half-walked, half-dragged Gehna up to her room. It took him a bit longer to do this than expected because Gehna wanted to strike up a conversation with every single person they passed in the lobby.

‘Hello-o-o,’ she yodelled at the skinny European couple in dreadlocks and flea-market pyjamas. ‘Have you guys found yourselves yet? I do some yoga. We should hang.’

‘Have you ever wondered,’ she asked in the elevator, facing a group of middle-aged Gujaratis on a package tour, ‘why everyone faces the same way in an elevator? Like, I’m feeling super awkward right now, but it’s fun too. Now you guys try it.’

Upstairs, her room was a savage wasteland. There were clothes strewn everywhere—on the carpet, the bed, the desk, and even draped over the pedestal lampshade. The TV had been pushed aside to make space for a room-service tray. The remains of what may once have been a plate of pasta lay congealing by the bedside, while the coverlet was stained with spilt coffee. Used towels lay in soggy bundles all over the bathroom. Despite the alarm fixture displayed prominently on the ceiling, the whole place stank of stale cigarette smoke.

Eram took shallow breaths through his mouth. ‘Have you been smoking in here?’ he asked Gehna, setting her down gently on the edge of the bed.

‘Nopes. But if I did, you have only yourself to blame,’ she said. As soon as she flopped down on her back, Eram started picking the room up. He put the plates and cups into the service tray and dumped it outside the door. When he lifted a scarf off the lampshade, Gehna groaned.