"Ohaaaaaaaaas!" Naina sang his name, merrily skipping towards the brooding figure. "You won't believe it! My husband is actually rich! Perhaps the richest man in this city!"

Ohas turned around, unaffected by this new information, a cigarette loose in between his lips and hands shoved in worn-out jeans.

Naina quickly jumped at him and snatched the cigarette from his lips. "How many times have I told you to not smoke?" Then with a smile, she put the cigarette in between her own lips, taking an expert drag. "God I needed this." Through the cloudy smoke, she saw Ohas smile wryly before he took it back from her. "Hey! You taught me to smoke, remember?"

He didn't respond to that, he let out a puff before asking with those cold, cat eyes, "What happened there?"

"Where?" Naina played innocent, but the more his eyes grew cold, the more she grew uncomfortable. She blurted out, "Nothing happened."

"Nothing happened?" Ohas repeated slowly, taking another drag.

Her face flushed, redness flooding her cheeks at the remembrance of what had happened. "Well, things happened."

"What . . . things?"

"I got touched there," she said, her eyebrows raising in mock humour and her eyes pointing down.

Ohas took a last drag before smashing the cigarette into ashes, its embers still burning on the ground. He strode towards her and his large hand roughly cupped her, down there, through her billowy skirt. With his jaw clenched and his face so close to her that their noses touched, he asked through gritted teeth, "There?"

"What the hell," Naina swore, snapping out of the chilling shock and shoving him away. A shudder ran down her spine as she felt the coldness of his hand lingering against the warmth of her body there. She smoothened her skirt, turning away from him. "Are you kidding me?"

She received no response except the same wry smile and that drove her mad, so mad that she rushed to him and shoved him again. Again and again. "What do you think? You can do anything, huh? Fuck you! It's over. I'm going to kill my husband alone! You go live your miserable, poor life!"

With a final shove that hardly affected Ohas, she stormed out of the deserted park and towards her home.

* * *

Suddenly, Naina felt someone grip her arm while she was climbing the stairs and she looked up, irritated. "What?"

Ahanay who was dressed in a navy blue suit with cuffed sleeves stared at her, frowning. "Did you smoke?"

"Huh?" She blinked her eyes in innocence and Ahanay touched her lips, slowly and carefully wiping her lower lip with his thumb.

"You did smoke," he observed, rubbing his thumb, his frown deepening. "Why did you smoke, Naina?"

"Are you my father? Or am I not an adult?" She asked, catching her lower lip in between her teeth. She hated when men like Ahanay and Ohas questioned her, it reminded her of her father. Her father who had stripped her of education and stole whatever money she made from tuition, only to be married off the moment she turned twenty-one and received a random proposal. "No, right? On your way, mister."

She resumed climbing the stairs when he caught her arm again, this time, a thoughtful look on his face.

"How often do you smoke?" He asked, his eyes inquisitive.

"Well . . . Not much. Rarely---"

"What are the chances that you can die from cancer?"

"What? What did you say?"

"Nothing," he said, patting her back and leaving the house.

Naina shrugged her shoulders at his strangeness, after all, nothing in the ordinary had occurred ever since she had married that man. For one man, this house was a bit too much. Naina considered renting some rooms out for weddings and funerals after she killed Ahanay.

Just as she was about to enter their bedroom, she heard voices whispering in the hallway. Curious, she took a peep. What. A. Fucking. Small. World.

"She must be so lucky," said Naina's childhood friend Varsha, her eyes dreamy as she propped her pointed chin on the tip of the mop handle. "She has such a beautiful house . . . Such a hot husband. God, have you seen him when he frowns? I would drop naked at his feet---"

"Shut up," her companion said, blushing and accidentally slapping the mop head against Varsha's face. "Oh no, sorry, sorry, sorry . . ." Varsha coughed out some strings, about to retaliate in anger, but stopped. Her companion was thinner than the mop she was holding, one hit and the girl would faint. "I'm so sorry! I'll do your dishes tomorrow."

Straightening herself and clearing her throat as if to restore her dignity, Varsha continued, "Anyway, only God knows why I'm here holding a mop and the madam of the house gets a king's sized bed with a jacuzzi."

"Jacuzzi?" Naina thought, looking around wildly. Why hadn't she discovered that treasure? The last she had bathed in a pool of water was with Ohas when they were thirteen, in the dirty, old lake that had dried up over the years and collected garbage now.

"She must be so beautiful," her companion said, starry-eyed. "She must have a PhD from abroad, in something cool like the Arts. And her family would have to be royal descendants."

Naina snapped out of her jacuzzi thoughts, her ears throbbing at the words she heard. Beautiful? PhD from abroad? Royal descendants? Did people like these still exist?

"I mean she has to be," Varsha said, rolling her eyes. "If she's any less, she doesn't deserve this."

Less? Naina looked at her hazy reflection on the shining floor. Neither was she an Apsara, nor a PhD. She was a twelfth pass from the alleys of Gandhi Nagar with a mother who borrowed sugar from her neighbours and a father who wore undershirts with holes. She was never given the first meal at home nor a bachelor's degree at college or even breathe without being tied to some man or other. Every waking second of her life was spent in proving how she deserved to live.

As she stared more and more at the reflection, the nostrils of her upturned nose flared in anger. She didn't cry when she was sad, she grew mothertucking angry. And God, how angry she was.

Sucking in a harsh breath, she scratched open the door of her bedroom with trembling fingers and heaved it shut. She never wanted to see those women, ever again, they were just jealous creatures. But her own jealousy bubbled at how Varsha had a diploma under her belt and her companion had a face like a budding rose. Yet, Naina had been the brightest in her class. She was never the teacher's pet because of how her mouth ran. Still, the teachers had no option, but to give her high scores when all her sums were correct and her sentences in Hindi and English never even missed a full stop.

If only she had been sent to college . . .

Again, she caught her reflection in a large, clear mirror of the dressing table, this time her eyes red-rimmed. Jealousy and hate towards those women, her mother, her father and towards her own self ignited a huge, riotous fire in her stomach, its flames licking and burning her heart ever so slightly. It was a slow fire, the fire that consumes you over time. Taking no more of it, she ran towards the windows. With a pull that threatened to bring the ceiling down, she snatched the curtains out of the hooks and threw them over the mirror.

She couldn't face her own shame, the ugly, little thing that wished her dead.