“I haven’t said anything.”
“Your face said it.”
She picked up the lubricant.
“You bought all this…”
“Put it down.”
“…spent thirty thousand…”
“Puja.”
“…shaved like you’re entering military service…”
Raja started laughing.
“…and tonight you’re getting a financial intervention.”
Vivek leaned backward, laughing.
Raja raised his cold drink.
“Best thirty thousand we’ve ever spent.”
Sanjay stared at him.
“Absolutely not.”
Puja laughed.
Then she switched the LEDs from red to a slow blue.
She sat in the centre of the sofa.
No fear now.
No client.
No prospective customers.
Just four people who had accidentally learned far too much about one another.
She poured cold drinks into four glasses.
Passed them around.
Raja lifted his.
“To quitting?”
Puja looked at him.
“Not yet.”
He lowered it.
She thought.
Then raised hers.
“To having another option.”
Vivek smiled.
“Better.”
Their glasses touched.
Four soft clicks.
Sanjay looked at his sister.
For the first time that evening, he didn’t see a secret that needed to be exposed.
He saw a problem that might actually have a solution.
Somewhere else in Patna, Sonam and Akariti still knew nothing about the agreement beginning to form around that sofa.
Tomorrow would bring arguments.
Denials.
Maybe anger.
Possibly refusal.
Nothing was solved yet.
But something had changed.
An hour earlier, three desperate men had been waiting for a woman to walk through the door and give them an experience they thought they were missing.
Instead Puja had walked in.
And by the end of the night, the question wasn’t how any of them would lose their virginity.
It was whether six young adults who had spent years hiding from their families could help one another build lives they no longer needed to hide.
Puja looked at the three of them for a long moment.
“There is something else you should know.”
Raja frowned. “What?”
“Tonight would have been my first group booking.”
Nobody spoke.
Vivek slowly put his glass down.
“You’ve never done three together?”
Puja shook her head.
“No. Never.”
Raja looked surprised. “But you said—”
“Thirty-six bookings doesn’t mean thirty-six identical nights.”
She leaned back against the sofa.
“The most clients I’ve ever seen in one day was three. Separately.”
Sanjay immediately looked uncomfortable.
“I really don’t need to know this.”
Puja smiled faintly.
“You three asked for honesty.”
“Honesty has limits.”
“Apparently.”
Raja and Vivek exchanged an awkward glance.
For all their earlier bravado, the reality of the situation had made both strangely quiet.
Puja noticed.
“See?”
“What?” Raja asked.
“Yesterday you three were desperate enough to pay thirty thousand rupees.”
She pointed toward the bedroom.
“Now nobody even knows where to look.”
Vivek laughed nervously.
“Reality is significantly more complicated than imagination.”
“Exactly.”
Puja stood.
For half a second all three men watched her.
Then she looked directly at Sanjay.
“And before anybody’s brain becomes stupid again—Bhaiya is completely outside this conversation.”
Sanjay stared at her.
“Thank God.”
Raja started laughing.
Puja pointed at him.
