With time he suspected there was a sliver of steel that ran in that spine. And then there was a soft innocent denial. He was torn between his own theories about her.

Harsh remembered the first media report in the paper. He cursed the sun for climbing up into the sky and the reporter snooping into their bedroom! He had prepared his defence and hoped to find lies that will hold his marriage and buy him some time, but all she did after reading the report twice was to calmly finish her breakfast of papaya, pomegranate, eggs and orange juice.

After she finished reading, she instructed the help to dispose off all the newspapers piled up in the store, including the one on the table. ‘A lot of trash is piling up lately,’ was all she said to him. At that moment Harsh felt he was the trash she referred to.

The squeal from the television set brought him back to the room. His gaze met hers again. She sat in front of the mirror, applying moisturizer to her ivory smooth skin. Her hands moved in measured circular strokes. Her thick lush mane sat perfectly around her shoulders, cut in the familiar layered pattern, always fallling in the same way. He wondered if she stuck it there. A perfect doll, she never had a bad hair day. He wanted to see her with messed up hair, burning in anger or crying out in passion. But he was disappointed on that count.

The initial years of marriage were marked with passionate lovemaking and frantic coupling and made him realize that she never lost control. She somehow had the genie in the bottle. The lid was tightly shut even when she screamed her release, panting in the throes of an orgasm. Be the angle of her head falling, or the arch of her back, her creamy naked legs circling his waist, she was a perfect lover but her perfection made him lose interest over a period of time.

Or was it something else? A guilty voice whispered.

Harsh buried the voice and reclaimed his theory.

She made a little sound as she turned on the low stool, to take off her lacy robes, dressed only in a singlet, her full breast and cleavage revealed, she stared at him with a question. Harsh felt no stirring or rush of blood, just a complete stillness as he prepared to erupt and explode inside Rajjo.

Their eyes locked as they shared a moment, a tension rose inside him. He dreaded this pregnant silence – usually it was followed by a statement or a question.

‘I want to visit her, this Durga Maa,’ she removed her bra as two beautiful breasts spilled out. He felt a stirring, an animalistic reaction to her body. She slipped over a scrap of satin, leaving nothing much to the imagination.