Akriti spun the bottle again.
It turned, slow, in the middle of the bed, among caps and shirts and the kind of silence that was not a funeral anymore.
The bottle did not point at clothes for long.
Shirt. Then camisole. Then Raja’s belt on a dare Sonam paid back with her own jeans. Vivek’s jeans after Akriti said, “Even, Bhaiya. Don’t sit half holy.” Sanjay’s last, because Puja clicked her tongue and said, “You don’t get to keep the dignified pair.”
Sports bra. Black bra. Then those too.
Laundry-basket facts became people.
By the fifth extra spin there was no fabric left that mattered. Six of them on Puja’s bed and the bit of floor beside it, bare in the tube light, bottles sweating, the bolt still doing the only decent job in the room.
Akriti sat cross-legged, unashamed on purpose.
“Last round is confession only. No more cute dares. If you lie I will know. We already saw the clip. Don’t protect a reputation you don’t have.”
Sonam pulled her hair over one shoulder, which hid nothing.
“Truth. All of you. Then us. Then if anyone wants to run, the door is there.”
The bottle pointed at Raja because the universe has no manners.
Raja looked at Sonam and did not look away from her breasts or the rest of her, because looking away would have been another lie.
“Truth. At home. When you bent to pick something up. Dupatta slipping. That time you were looking for a charger under the bed. I got hard. I went to the bathroom and I hated myself and I still got hard. More than once.”
Sonam’s throat moved.
“Keep going if there’s more.”
“There is more.” Raja’s voice dropped. “I stood in the passage when you were bathing. The door was not even open much. Steam. The sound of the bucket. I didn’t walk in. I also didn’t walk away as fast as a brother should. I listened. I thought about the shape of you. I finished in my own fist like a coward and then I sat at dinner and asked you about internals.”
Nobody rescued him.
The bottle was only theatre now. Vivek spoke before it finished a turn.
“Akriti. Home. You bent to get the pressure cooker from the low shelf. I saw down your neckline and I was finished. Gym also. When we had that cheap treadmill in the verandah and you came to call me for tea, I was already looking at you in the reflection. Then later I imagined you with nothing on.” He shut his eyes. Opened them. “Bath. Yes. I spied. The window slats. Not a full picture. Enough. I knew it was wrong when I was doing it. I did it more than once.”
Akriti laughed, sharp, not kind, not leaving.
“You useless man.”
“I know.”
Sanjay did not wait for a spin.
“Puja. You know part of this. Not all.” His hands were on his own knees, useless. “You bent to sweep. You bent to get the bucket. You wore those thin house clothes and I went hard in the same house that still had school books on the shelf. I watched the bathroom door like a dog. I heard you. I pictured you. I came quietly so nobody would ask why I was late to eat.” He looked at Sonam, then at Akriti, because the last part was not only Puja. “And it was not only my sister in my head. That’s the rest.”
