Chapter 7: The Mother’s Confession

My mother knew.

I realized this approximately one month after claiming Ishani, on a night when the monsoon finally broke over Jaipur, turning the air from furnace to steam bath, sending torrents of rain cascading down from the roof in waterfalls that drowned out all other sound.

I had been with all four of my sisters that day a rare confluence when none of them had commitments elsewhere. We had spent the afternoon in the old hunting lodge on the edge of our property, a building unused for decades that had become our temple of sin. There, in the dusty rooms where our ancestors had once entertained British officers, we had created a scene of such depravity that it would have shocked the gods themselves.

Kavya had taken me in her mouth while the twins sixty-nined beside us, their identical bodies writhing in perfect symmetry. Ananya had ridden me reverse cowgirl, her back arched, her dyed hair swinging, while Ishani sweet, transformed Ishani had learned to use her tongue on her sisters, bringing them to climax after climax while I watched, stroking myself back to hardness for the next round.

We had returned to the main house separately, at intervals, showering and changing, presenting the faces of respectable young women to the household. But I had missed a spot of Neera’s lipstick on my collar, had carried the smell of their combined arousals on my skin despite the shower.

And my mother had noticed.

She waited until the house was asleep. Until my father had retired to his study to work on accounts, as he often did late into the night. Until the sisters had gone to their rooms, sated and exhausted.

She found me in the kitchen, drinking water, my throat parched from the day’s exertions.

“Arjun,” she said softly, and I turned to find her standing in the doorway, wearing a silk nightrobe the colour of midnight blue, her hair loose around her shoulders, her face unreadable.

“Mother,” I said, my heart suddenly hammering. “I was just getting some water. I couldn’t sleep.”

“Neither could I,” she said, moving closer. She stopped an arm’s length away, and I could smell her perfume jasmine and sandalwood, the scent of my childhood, now suddenly, dizzyingly erotic. “I have been watching you, beta. Watching all of you.”