10: The Storm at the Gala

5–6 August 2000

The days leading up to the Gala blurred into a flurry of motion and intent.

Biswas took revenge for Bharath’s two-day absence with ruthless precision — drills doubled, water breaks halved, the ball always just out of reach. Tackling practice turned into controlled combat. Slide. Recover. Fall. Get up. Repeat.

But Bharath didn’t complain.

He pushed harder. Not to prove something. To build something. Quietly. Unshakably. For the first time, it wasn’t about talent. It was about dedication. The ability to endure.

He wasn’t flashy. He didn’t showboat. His passes made other players look better. His positioning saved plays that should have failed. His hustle turned fumbles into second chances. And slowly, the older players noticed. Nods replaced smirks. They began to trust him.

He was still benched. Still not starting. Still officially “green.”

But he was respected now. He was earning his stripes on the field. And the fire in his legs matched the purpose in his chest. Every bruise he earned was a reminder — not just of what he was chasing, but who he was holding together.

Anya re-entered her social orbit with precision. Modeling gigs, yoga events, carefully arranged cafe sightings — each a thread in the illusion of normalcy. Her mother’s network remained vast and vicious, so Anya stayed a step ahead. Beautiful. Effortless. Dangerous.

She began bumping into Kim. Softly. No pressure. A casual coffee. A warm smile after class. A remark about research stress. She left Kim with lingering touches, half-questions, and an open invitation.

Just enough to stoke curiosity.

Priya, meanwhile, moved deeper into her assistant role — sleek blouses, neutral lipstick, a camera slung like a badge of access. She ghosted through fashion events, model lounges, cocktail galas. Listening. Watching. Sometimes flirting, if it helped. The lens did most of the work. People were always less careful when they were trying to look pretty.

At night, the three of them reassembled like a ritual.

Floor plans. Guest lists. Surveillance sketches. Syndicate profiles.

Their movements built toward something larger. A pattern. A purpose. They decided that Anya should go back home every night so that she didn’t draw Rekha’s attention towards them.

Rekha’s eyes were everywhere — drivers, stylists, errand boys pretending not to report back. That’s why the plan was clear: keep Anya clean. Public. Predictable. Go home each night. Stay boring. Stay safe.

But Anya broke first. Anya wasn’t supposed to be there. She knew that. Everyone did.

But by 10:30 PM that first night, she was already pacing her room like a caged animal, her makeup wiped clean, changed into her favorite cotton tank top. Her body was on fire. Not just with need — but with longing. With fury. With the aching injustice of being told to stay away from the one person that made her feel real.

So she left. No lipstick. No helmet.

She threw a shawl over her tank top, slipped out past the penthouse gate in soft slippers like a ghost, and took the old scooty — the one she hadn’t used in years. She rode like she was chasing something, hair whipping loose, eyes locked forward.

By the time Bharath opened the door — blinking, stunned — she was already pushing inside.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” he said.

She just jumped into his arms and kissed him in reply. Hard. Hungry. Like she wanted to climb inside him and disappear.

Priya groaned audibly from the couch as she spotted the tangle at the threshold. “Seriously? Didn’t you just leave a few hours back?” she grumbled. “It’s not even midnight.”

“Go to sleep,” Anya shot back between kisses. “And plug your ears.”

“Stupid young love with zero self-control,” Priya muttered, stuffing tissue into her ears and pulling a pillow over her face.

Bharath didn’t resist. He just carried Anya into the bedroom like he’d been waiting for this since the second she left. Which, of course, he had.

They barely made it to the bed. Clothes came off in awkward bursts — tugged, yanked, laughed through. Anya bit his neck and whispered threats. Bharath pinned her arms and kissed her breathless.

They didn’t go all the way. Not yet. But they pushed the edge.

Tongues. Fingers. Hips grinding in sync until Anya’s thighs trembled and Bharath came in her hands with a gasp. She delighted in cleaning them up, making sure he was watching, licking them as lewdly as possible, smiling evilly as she saw how much her performance affected him.

“Do you think you would like to see me do this with Kim?”

Bharath could only croak in response, his mind already blown.

After, they lay tangled in sweat and fabric, legs intertwined, hearts pounding. Anya sighed into his chest. “This is reckless.”

“I know,” he said.

“I’m coming back tomorrow.”

“Obviously.”

The next night Anya didn’t even try to sneak in. This time Bharath opened the door already grinning. “I left the light on.”

She pounced into his arms like a jungle cat in heat, locking her legs around him and making sure his hands were full of her ass. “Good. I’d have broken the door if you hadn’t.”

Priya caught them again — this time mid-makeout, halfway to the kitchen.

She didn’t even look up. Just waved a slipper in their direction. “Go to your bedroom. Now. Or I start spraying cold water.”

“Love you too, Priya,” Anya said sweetly. “Oh. And don’t forget your ear plugs.”

Back in the bedroom, it was even worse — or better, depending on who you asked.

They stripped each other slow this time. Not frantic. Not rushed. Anya kissed every inch of him like she had a map in her head. Bharath worshipped her back — his mouth on her chest, her thighs, her belly, until she gasped and arched off the mattress.

Still no final step. Still no line crossed. But they burned.

She came twice from just his mouth, biting her lip to stay quiet, burying her face in his thighs as her body rocked and ground against his mouth as he worshiped her core over and over. Just held her, whispering nonsense and futures.

Later, when Anya finally dozed off — one leg draped possessively over Bharath’s waist, her cheek nestled into the crook of his neck — Bharath simply held her. Watched her breathe. Felt the twitch of her fingers against his chest, the slow exhale that told him she was safe. His arm stayed locked around her back, pulling her close enough that not even thought could pass between them without permission.

They always fell asleep this way now — tangled, pressed together, skin-to-skin, as if the universe had shrunk to the size of one bed and two reckless hearts.

And every night they did, the dreams came. Always in rhythm as Bharath and Anya pulled Kim into their dreamscape.

Across town, in the hushed silence of the guesthouse, Celina sat before her vanity like a woman unraveling.

Nights had become repetition. Not comfort. Just habit. One sandalwood agarbatti. The same Lata Mangeshkar vinyl — her mother’s old record. A too-sweet glass of cheap red wine. And silence. The kind that pressed against her chest like guilt.

She still hadn’t stopped thinking about him.

Bharath.

Not since the shoot. Not since the moment his hands touched her waist with the kind of control that made her want to fall apart. Not since he looked at Anya like she was air — and at Celina like she was just passing through.

And that hurt. It made no sense.

Other men lost their breath around her. Fell over themselves. Sent her gifts. Stared like she was a screen dream. Even women paused, just to admire her.

But Bharath? He didn’t want her.

She couldn’t understand it.

She’d given him everything in that moment — vulnerability, beauty, power, surrender. But he hadn’t taken it. He’d looked at her like she was beautiful ... but distant. Out of reach, or maybe not worth the risk.

And now she couldn’t forget it. Couldn’t forgive it.

She slid beneath the covers, already knowing where the night would go. Already hating herself for it.

Her hand drifted lower out of instinct, not thrill. There was no heat left. Just ache. Just questions.

She imagined him again, like always. Bharath, pulling her towards him. Whispering her name like a promise. Holding her like she meant something.

Sometimes Kim appeared in the dream too — not lustful, just soft. Holding her face. Kissing her breast like it might soothe the break inside.

Sometimes Anya whispered, “Let go.”

But Celina couldn’t. Not really.

She rocked gently, chasing the ghost of a climax, biting her lip to keep from crying. And when she finally came, it wasn’t release. It was loneliness. It was shame.

“Bharath,” she whispered — not a moan. A confession. A plea.

She lay there afterward, sheets damp, thighs still trembling, and stared at the ceiling like it might answer for him.

Why not me?

Why couldn’t he want her?

Just once — like she mattered.

Eventually she fell asleep, the name still on her lips. Not like a prophecy.

Like a wound. And she dreamed of a gala. Of lights. Of war paint. Of fire.

Because if he wouldn’t see her when she gave everything ... Then maybe he’d see her when she burned it all down.

7 August 2000

The next morning, Kim took a break from her research. She couldn’t continue it anymore as she was extremely aroused.

Stacks of notebooks lay open, their pages scrawled with overlapping annotations — ink stains, half-legible charts, lines of Sanskrit scrawled beside hand-drawn yantras, looping arrows connecting emotion to arousal to altered states of consciousness.

She sat curled in her chair, glasses discarded on the table. She didn’t need them anymore.

Not since the second night of shared dreaming. The haze that once settled behind her eyes had lifted like fog burned off by sunrise. Her back no longer ached. Her old posture — the stiff, hunched shoulders of someone perpetually hiding — had been replaced with something ... proud. Grounded. A quiet power that hummed just beneath her skin. Her libido was off the charts. Her body had transformed.

The curves were still there — full hips, that high, wicked ass now sculpted to perfection, a waist that arched like it was built to be gripped — but everything had tightened. Sharpened. No longer the soft roundness of girlhood. She moved like a woman now. Like someone who could hold her own in a catwalk lineup — all lush power and tight control.

And her breasts?

Still massive. F-cups. But now they sat high, bold, unapologetic. She didn’t even need a bra anymore. They just ... stayed. Perky, ripe, obscene in the best possible way.

They ached all the time. Sensitive as hell. She wore a bra only because the constant friction from her kurti made her nipples so hard it was distracting — not just to others, but to her. A single gust of wind through the fabric, and she was clenching her thighs, breath shaky, biting her lip just to stay upright.

It wasn’t just how she looked. It was how her body felt: primed. Taut. Hungry.

Bharath could never keep his hands, mouth or even shaft away from them for long as he paid obeisance to them repeatedly through the nights.

She had learned what Bharath liked — the exact pressure of her breasts around him when she slid them together, his large cock nestled between. How he groaned when she sucked just the head, her lips shiny, her eyes half-lidded. She loved it when he exploded into her face as her breasts were wrapped around his shaft, his spend dripping off every part of her face, neck and torso.

And Anya? Anya worshipped her like she was a sacred text. Anya especially loved cleaning her up with her devilish tongue after Bharath came all over her, often stopping to share his spend with her watching him whimper as they dueled tongues.

She had learned how to kiss Anya while she did it. How to slide her tongue over Anya, still tasting him. How to ensure that he was watching as the two of them explored each other, his breath ragged as they performed devotion with their hands, breasts, mouths, their tongues arousing him constantly with their fevered moans.

She loved watching him watch them.

In one dream, she and Anya had knelt on either side of him, their lips and breasts working in perfect sync, hands stroking his thighs, tongues meeting over his skin. Bharath had come so hard they both felt it — in their mouths, their chests, their cores. And the way he looked at her — not just with desire, but with something almost reverent — made her dizzy.

Kim shivered, setting down her pen.

She’d been trying to focus — to finish her latest round of observational analysis. She’d just started a new column in her notebook: “Somatic Memory Retention: Cross-Plane Responses in Waking Bodies.”

But she had only managed a few sentences before her mind unraveled, because how could she write objectively about dream-state physiology when she kept dreaming of Anya’s mouth?

Of Bharath’s hands or his shaft driving into her breaking her down with ease?

Of her own voice — breathy, pleading, raw — as they worked her open together?

Her thighs clenched involuntarily at the memory.

She had started as an observer. Passive. Studious. Her role had been to document, measure, analyze. But that role had long since melted into the sheets. The dreams no longer happened to her. She was part of them now.

She closed her notebook, pushed the notebook away, and slid back into her bed beneath the covers, naked.

Her fingers moved slowly at first — teasing. Her other hand found her breast, still amazed at the firmness, the way her nipples peaked with just a brush.

Her voice was a whisper: “Bharath...”

She imagined his tongue on her while Anya kissed her deeply — her thighs thrown over Bharath’s shoulders, her cries swallowed into Anya’s mouth.

Her body writhed. Her fingers moved faster. She moaned into the pillow.

And when the climax hit — fast, furious, undeniable — she cried out his name.

But she didn’t stop.

She rolled onto her stomach, grinding against the sheets, her mind full of them. Bharath standing over her, cock thick and heavy against her lips, his voice shaking as he whispered, “Take me, Kimmy. Show me what you’ve learned.”

She came again. Shuddering. Sweaty. Loved. When it passed, she lay there trembling.

Spent. Her face still flushed. Her skin tingling. And her heart thudding with something more dangerous than lust.

Longing.

She was no longer sure what she wanted from the dreams.

Answers? Belonging? Or just... them.

All she knew was that this went beyond science. And deeper than desire.

And the moment she closed her eyes, she knew exactly where she’d be going that night. It was time to let them claim her in real life as well. She belonged to him. To them.

The chandeliers above glistened like frozen fireworks, each crystal strand catching the golden glow of concealed spotlights. The Imperial Grand, long a colonial relic turned elite events venue, had been polished into perfection for the night — all marble floors, velvet drapes, and waiters in cream bandhgala uniforms bearing flutes of imported Prosecco and bite-sized amuse-bouches.

Calcutta’s high society had arrived. In couture. In gossip. In full force.

There were royalty-adjacent Marwari industrialists who never appeared in public without a dozen bodyguards and a longer list of favors owed. There were Bengali cultural elites in raw silk dhotis and Jamdani sarees, quoting Tagore as they eyed the champagne. Young heirs and trust fund babies, media barons with lacquered smiles, fashion editors sipping cocktails with one manicured hand and texting scoops with the other.

Warrior Sportswear’s branding blazed across the digital panels — bold white against deep indigo, muscular silhouettes frozen mid-stride in poses of grit and glory. Beside it, the Heritage City FC crest gleamed: two lions flanking a flaming torch, beneath the motto: Strength. Skill. Spirit.

This wasn’t just a party. It was a declaration. Warrior staking its claim on India’s youth-driven sports future. Heritage City FC signaling its evolution into a national powerhouse.

The press gallery — carefully curated, tightly managed — buzzed with energy. Fashion spreads were already being drafted live from the ballroom.

“Saree or scandal?” a junior reporter whispered to her editor, nodding toward Anya in the backless red-and-gold ensemble that redefined “devastating.”

Across the room, sponsors swirled. A telecom baron gripped hands with a Warrior exec; a perfume CEO cornered a Heritage City board member over exclusivity rights.

No one noticed the shadows behind the smiles — the Syndicate-linked guest who lingered too long at the bar. The teenage hostess who looked a little too nervous in her heels. The way Priya’s camera lingered half a second longer on certain faces than it should.

And still, the music played on — a mix of live sitar and ambient electronic, echoing off marble and chandeliers.

And then ... The crowd stirred. Heads turned. A hush passed like a ripple.

Kim had arrived. She had never felt so visible in her life. Not at a debate final. Not at a convocation ceremony. Not even when she delivered a research abstract to a panel of stone-faced psychiatrists.

But tonight?

Tonight, as she stepped through the gilded archway of The Imperial Grand, the world seemed to halt. The chandelier light fractured against endless polished marble, and a thousand eyes seemed to pause in mid-blink to trace her outline.

She wasn’t wearing the demure shapeless dress she would have otherwise worn.

She had chosen, almost on instinct, a midnight-blue gown — velvet-soft, sleeveless, with a plunging back and twin slits rising high up her thighs. Every inch of it whispered something she had long buried: I want to be seen.

The slit parted slightly as she walked, revealing glimpses of smooth, toned legs that had once felt invisible behind desks and degrees. Her breasts, full and perky without any bra, swayed with proud defiance against the fabric. She’d styled her hair into a loose wave, pinned with fresh jasmine that echoed the girl she’d once been — and the goddess she was becoming.

The usher blinked as she approached.

“Ma’am, may I take your invite?”

She nodded, silently, handing it over with fingers that no longer trembled — not in front of strangers, at least.

Conversations softened as she passed. A server’s tray dipped. A cluster of junior models followed her with wide eyes.

Was it lust? Awe? Envy?

She wasn’t sure.

But for the first time, she didn’t shrink from it.

She was learning to wear attention like silk.

The girl in the mirror of her dreams would have owned this moment without flinching.

And Kim ... Kim was slowly, undeniably becoming her.

She had no idea what magic was doing this to her.

She only knew who was at the center of it.

And then ... she saw them.

In a dark charcoal sherwani, collar stiff and elegant, sleeves rolled just enough to reveal strong forearms. His stance was relaxed, but his eyes ... they were searching.

And Anya.

Red and gold saree, blouse backless and sleeveless, her hair a waterfall of midnight over one shoulder. She looked like an apsara sculpted in scandal. One hand on her hip, the other lifting a flute of sparkling water, smirking at a passing industrialist like she already owned his future.

They stood just close enough to whisper. Just far enough to keep tongues wagging.

Perfect decoy, perfect tension.

Kim stood frozen, breath shallow.

Every dream came rushing back.

The feeling of Bharath’s mouth on her throat. The weight of Anya’s thigh draped over hers. The hunger. The heat.

And now ... they were real. Together. And just a few meters away.

She stepped back into the crowd, heart pounding.

Bharath saw her the moment she stepped in.

In a midnight-blue gown that clung to her like the night sky itself had decided to worship her curves. Slits ran up both sides of her legs like a provocation, her breasts sat proud and unsupported beneath the velvet, and flowers clung to her hair like a whisper from another life.

He forgot to breathe.

She wasn’t just Kim. She was the Earth goddess unshackled. The quiet student who used to fidget with her glasses and hide behind her clipboard was gone.

In her place was this vision — poised, radiant, so achingly sensual that heads turned as she walked, men adjusted their collars, and women squinted in envy. Anya was mid-laugh beside him, charming a politician’s wife. But his gaze had already shifted, helplessly.

“Kim’s here,” he murmured.

Anya didn’t even glance. “I know. She’s burning a hole through your chest.”

Bharath’s voice was barely a whisper. “She’s ... stunning.”

Anya smiled, turning just slightly to follow his gaze. And when she saw Kim — saw the way she moved, how the slit of her gown opened like a secret — her smile sharpened into something wolfish.

“She’s claiming herself,” Anya murmured. “Finally.”

He nodded. There was pride blooming in his chest. Awe. Something more tender, more protective.

Anya leaned into his ear, voice a sultry purr. “If that’s what she wears to tease ... imagine what she’ll wear when we undress her.”

He swallowed hard.

“Not for long,” Anya added, eyes flicking toward Kim again. “We’ll find her later. And then we’ll show her exactly what that gown was made for.”

The photographer clicked another set — Anya standing between two telecom billionaires who couldn’t keep their eyes off her cleavage. She smiled sweetly, tilted her head, adjusted the pallu like she was framing art, all while her blood simmered just under the skin.

The danger of it all — the heat of Bharath beside her, the weight of Kim’s presence in that scandalous gown, and the thrill of prowling among predators pretending to be princes — it stirred something primal inside her. It wasn’t just about seduction. It was about control.

Her nipples tingled against the fabric of her blouse as she caught Bharath’s scent on the breeze. Anya’s thighs clenched with each subtle glance toward Kim, who looked like a secret too powerful to leave untouched. She wanted her. Tbey wanted her. But that would have to wait.

They were hunting tonight. And she knew this world better than anyone.

Meanwhile, Priya moved like a shadow. Camera around her neck, eyes scanning every guest, absorbing everything. She passed behind Anya, her voice low but sharp.

“Two known clients at the bar. Syndicate-linked. One girl looks barely legal.”

Anya didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. She lifted her hand to push her hair back — the cue. Elegant. Untraceable.

“Signal in five,” she whispered, still smiling for the camera.

Priya flowed into position. Flash. Evidence captured. One more thread pulled from the web.

Anya held the pose, shifted weight to her hip, and leaned just enough toward Bharath beside her to let their shoulders brush.

“You’re on camera duty soon,” she murmured through a smile. “Try not to look like you’d rather be anywhere else.”

He didn’t even look at Anya. “I’d rather be under your saree,” he said, lips unmoving.

A bolt of heat snapped up her spine. Her breath caught, but she exhaled slowly, biting the inside of her cheek.

“Behave,” she hissed.

“Impossible,” he murmured back.

And gods, did she want to punish him for it — later, with Kim watching.

And then came the reckoning.

Celina.

The ballroom didn’t go silent for her the way it had for Kim.

It went hungry.

A ripple passed through the crowd — breath catching, conversation stalling — as she descended the marble staircase like something the gods had crafted out of defiance. Not a debutante. Not a muse. A predator in black silk.

Her gown hugged every inch of her — glossy, liquid, slashed high to bare one impossibly long thigh with each step. The neckline plunged deep between her breasts, daring attention, demanding submission. Her hair was slicked up into a high, unshakable bun, her bare neck a blade of elegance. Crimson lips, dark-lined eyes, no jewelry. She needed none.

She had come to impress.

To punish him with how radiant she had become.

To show him what he could have had — and chose not to take.

But the moment she saw him, all of it fell away.

Bharath.

He wasn’t even facing her at first. He was mid-laugh, something casual shared with Anya, his arm slung low around her waist. He wore charcoal-grey — fitted, understated, unfair. The sleeves tugged just enough to show the cut of his biceps. His smile was soft, off-guard.

And then he looked up. Their eyes locked. The air left her lungs.

Because it was him — the him she saw in dreams.

The one who held her down, kissed her breathless, made her beg. The one who took without hesitation, whose voice shook when he said her name. The one who had claimed her in the dark, again and again, without ever truly touching her.

And in that instant, she saw it in him too.

Desire. Raw. Unfiltered. Naked.

It wasn’t polite or warm. It wasn’t the gaze he gave Anya — familiar and proud.

This was something else.

He looked at her like a man remembering a secret. Like he could already taste her. Like the room, the music, Anya — everything — had fallen away.

Celina felt it break through her like a rush of heat between her legs.

Her knees faltered — not visibly, but enough that she caught the banister a second longer than she meant to. The illusion of control cracked under the pressure of being seen like that.

She had come to command the room.

Instead, she was undone — by one look.

Because he wanted her.

And now she didn’t know whether she wanted revenge ... or to crawl into his arms and ask him why it had taken him this long to see her.

Bharath’s fingers clenched. Not just clenched — gripped Anya’s waist, suddenly, tightly. She turned to him in surprise, caught the way his eyes were locked on Celina, and followed his gaze.

Celina saw all of it. The way his posture tensed. The way his breath stopped. The way his body reacted before his brain could.

He looked like she’d punched him in the lungs.

And for a moment — a glorious, divine moment — she felt triumph.

She made her way across the ballroom in slow, deliberate strides. Not too fast. Not too eager. Just lethal enough to make him sweat.

Eyes followed her.

Men parted for her.

But she walked straight to him.

Her voice, when it came, was smooth — even polite. “Hey.”

Bharath blinked, recovering just barely. “Celina.”

She glanced at Anya with only the faintest nod, then looked back at him. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

Anya’s expression didn’t shift. But her fingers uncurled from Bharath’s sleeve like she was handing over a weapon. “Of course,” she said, stepping back with regal ease. “He’s all yours.”

The words sat somewhere between permission and challenge.

Bharath cleared his throat and followed Celina a few feet away, toward the edge of the gallery wall. The music, the chatter, the crowd blurred behind them.

Celina turned, arms loosely crossed beneath her chest, posture casual but her eyes gleaming.

“I just...” She exhaled. “I wanted to apologize. For the other day. At the shoot.”

Bharath met her eyes. “You don’t have to—”

“I do,” she interrupted, softer now. “I was unprofessional. And rude. And ... I wasn’t in a great place.”

A beat.

He said nothing. Just nodded, slow and measured.

Celina tilted her head, annoyed by how unreadable he was. “You’re not going to ask me why?”

His eyes warmed slightly. “If you wanted to tell me, you would.”

That gentleness. That restraint. It knocked something loose in her chest.

Why was he making this harder?

“You’re ... different,” she murmured, almost accusing.

“So are you,” he said simply.

She let out a breathless, almost bitter laugh. “Oh, I don’t think you’ve seen my different yet.”

Then she did it — she dropped her voice, dipped her gaze, leaned just close enough that her words touched skin.

“I’d let you do anything,” she whispered. “You could push me up against that wall and tear this dress in half. Bite my neck until I scream. Bend me over and—”

His eyes dropped — once. Slowly. Her heart jolted. Because it was there.

Desire. Full and unmasked.

He looked at her mouth like he’d memorized its shape. At the swell of her breasts, rising and falling too fast. At her thighs, exposed just enough to spark a thousand possibilities.