It was the scorching summer vacation after class 8th, back in 2005 or so, when Pune turned into a furnace under the relentless Maharashtra sun. The monsoons were still weeks away, and the air hung heavy with dust and the faint scent of blooming gulmohars lining our locality’s streets. Our house in Aundh was a three-story haven—Dad’s business success had afforded us that much—with my room on the top floor, a sanctuary of boyhood chaos: posters of cricket stars on the walls, a cluttered desk piled with comic books and school notes, and that clunky old desktop computer Dad had picked up from the electronics market in Laxmi Road. It was our gaming den, our escape pod. Pawan and Himashu had biked over that afternoon, their faces slick with sweat from the ride, T-shirts stained with the grime of street cricket earlier that morning.
“Bro, your AC is a lifesaver,” Pawan had groaned as he flopped onto my bed, fanning himself with a discarded notebook. He was the tallest of us even then, lanky with that mischievous grin that always got us into trouble. Himashu, shorter and stockier, with his perpetual energy, grabbed the mouse first. “Asphalt time! I’m gonna smoke you guys today.” We fired up the game—Asphalt 8, our obsession that summer—hunched over the glowing screen, the room filled with the roar of virtual engines and our shouts of triumph or defeat. The ceiling fan whirred overhead, stirring the hot air but doing little to cool us. We raced through pixelated streets, drifting around corners, nitro-boosting past each other, the competition fierce and fun.
Hours melted away in that digital haze. We paused only for quick gulps of water from the bottle I’d snuck up. Then, as the sun dipped lower, casting long shadows through the window grilles, the conversation turned—as it often did with boys our age—to the forbidden. “Hey, have you guys seen that stuff online?” Himashu whispered, his voice dropping even though we were alone. Pawan leaned in, eyes lighting up. “You mean… yeah. Let’s check it out. Just for laughs.” I hesitated for a second—Mom was home, Dad at work, Sonam downstairs with her dolls—but the thrill won out. “Okay, but keep it quiet,” I said, my fingers already typing into the browser.
We found a site quickly, the kind that loaded slow on our dial-up connection, pixel by pixel revealing thumbnails that made our pulses race. We clicked on one: “Hot MILF Adventure” or something equally cheesy. The video buffered, then played—soft lighting, sultry music, a mature woman with curves that seemed larger than life, engaging in acts that left us wide-eyed and squirming in our seats. We watched in hushed awe, the room growing warmer, our breaths shallow. It was our first real exposure, awkward and exhilarating, the screen casting a blue glow on our flushed faces. Whispers of “Whoa” and stifled giggles filled the air as we leaned closer, mesmerized by the fantasy unfolding.
Little did we know that Mummy was just a door away, in the attached bathroom.
She’d been downstairs all morning, tackling the endless laundry that piled up in a household like ours—Dad’s shirts from business meetings, Sonam’s school uniforms, my cricket-stained clothes. The heat had gotten to her; I vaguely remembered her mentioning a quick bath to cool off. The third-floor bathroom was her favorite for that—private, with its old geyser and tiled walls that stayed cooler than the rest of the house. The water had been running for a while, a distant hum we hadn’t registered over the video’s sounds. Then, abruptly, it stopped. The door handle turned with a click.