“College alag hai. Woh respect hai. Yeh kaam alag hai. Dono ek shehar mein chal sakte hain agar aadmi line rakhe.”
Kabir looked from the dark phone to Vivek’s face.
“Humko nahi pata tha yeh word.”
“Ab pata hai,” Himanshu said.
For a long minute none of the three from the gali spoke. Then the truth they had carried since school, since terraces, since nights with a cheap data pack, came out because Vivek’s flat had already taken one secret and could take another.
Keshav said it first.
“Bhaiya… hum virgin hain.”
Rohan let out a breath that was almost a laugh.
“Girlfriend nahi. Sex nahi. Porn dekhte hain. Jerk karte hain. Itna hi syllabus hai.”
Kabir nodded at the floor.
“Teen mahine ho gaye college. Wahi. Ghar, class, thoda beer aaj pehli baar.”
Himanshu started to grin. Vivek did not. He looked at them the way he had looked at their first presentation — measuring what was raw and what could be trained.
Then he smiled, smaller, almost fond, and used the voice he used at the gate when he dropped them home.
“Arre chote. Tension mat lo.”
He took the phone back, locked it, set it face down.
“Pehle samajh lo farak — dekhna, chahna, karna. Tum abhi pehle do pe ho. Teesra aayega. Girlfriend bhi. Baaki cheezen bhi. Main hun na. Seedha chhod ke nahi jaunga.”
The beer tasted different after that. Not only bitter. The flat looked different too — not just a 2BHK with dumbbells and a made bed, but a room that belonged to a man who lived more than one Banaras at once. They talked a little more, laughed a little less honestly, and when they finally stood to leave, Vivek walked them to the stair as if nothing in the evening had been a fall.
“Kal campus pe milna,” he said. “Padhai pehle. Baaki main dekh lunga.”
They went down into the night with the word still in their mouths. Gigolo. Virgin. Bhaiya. The same city, suddenly larger. The tempo toward Hanuman Gali felt slower. Three houses would be waiting, ordinary and lit. They did not speak of those houses. They spoke, very quietly, of the phone, of the beer, of the promise that had sounded easy in a flat and would not sound easy in the gali.
Keshav said, “Woh humko bacha samajhta hai.”
Rohan said, “Woh humko banaana chahta hai.”
Kabir looked at the dark road.
“Dono saath ho sakta hai.”
Behind them the 2BHK stayed on, a window among other windows. Ahead of them first year waited, no longer only lectures and tea.
Four months into the year the campus had already taught Keshav how to enter Vivek’s 2BHK without knocking twice.
That afternoon was only notes. Accountancy. A file Vivek had promised and then forgotten on the laptop. Vivek came out of the bathroom in a towel, hair wet, already late.
“Party hai. Tu khel. Jab nikalna ho lock kar dena, chaabi warden ko de dena.”
The door closed. The flat settled. FIFA ran on the laptop. After an hour the match felt empty. The cursor drifted. A folder on the desktop sat under a name too plain to be innocent.
CLIENTS
Inside, the world was arranged like a ledger.
Dated folders. Month. Day. Sometimes a first name, sometimes only a letter. Each folder had the same bones: photographs, call recordings, payment screenshots, a Word file, and videos.
