REPLACEMENT WIFE (Short Story) [THE MARTYR WIVES BOOK 1]

10. Rashak

SARISHA

“Do you want to check?"
His words dropped my jaw, my nervousness at its peak, he was too bold. I know him for someone cranky but this strangely new side of him, is making me curl my toes, and my palms sweaty.

There are rarely people, who can cease my lips and I haven't found one yet, but him? It feels like he enters my nerves and twists them left and right before he leaves me.

I gulped down, latching my jaw together before I extended my hand his way, he looked at my palm and raised his brows in a questioning look.

“Is it an invitation? Sarisha?” He asked me, shamelessly for who he was, and I smiled, my lips stretched wide, he giggled before he took my palm in his tough ones, not entirely rough but under my smooth ones, were hard. And I pulled him on the floor and he faltered front and on his knees right before me.

He made me sit down on the floor, and while he sat up on the couch, he was destined to fall, “You are one shameless! Uncle,” I stood on my feet and stride towards my bed while he sat where he was, with a sly smile plastered on his face.

I pushed myself in blankets and covered completely. I heard him moving in the room, and the couch probably sunk while silence embarrassed.

"You can go to college, Sarisha! But..." He started suddenly under the silence and lost his trail before continuing.
"I might not be a good match for you, but I am not a saint who would tolerate you finding your better half there," He said and silently let the room sink into the same awkward silence.

He is afraid that I go to college. I might cheat on him.
I guess I understand him.

****

I joined Manya for tea, on the porch swing she spends her morning with a sketchbook in her hand.

She gave me a warm smile before I sat beside her. "Good morning! Bhavat!" (Brother's wife) She called me with a smile,

"Call me just Sarisha, I have told you!"

"Well, your annoyance gives out dopamine!" She laughed, "No wonder Bira loves to push your buttons!" 

"I think you have the wrong idea! I am the one who pushes his buttons!" I told her in a clarification and she laughed with a snot,

"Bira has so much patience raising me! He allows you to aggravate him! Or else he wouldn't bother reacting to you," She said, so seriously. And it leads me to question.

Truly?

She poured the tea into a spare cup and handed me. I took it from her hand and sipped, Vidyut left earlier. So it was once again me and Manya.

Manya had a quiet way to live, she didn't talk or jump with excitement. Her act shows how modestly she was raised. She doesn't say unnecessary things and mostly talks with satirical humour.

For someone from an average family, I am used to loud surroundings, so the way she embraces silence? I am not sure what to talk with her about.

She finished her tea, watching the garden against her, opened her sketchbook and with her graphite started to draw random lines on the paper.

"Banni-sa, someone is at the door," I heard the grahastika inform me, standing next to me.
I stared at Manya, "It must be someone Bira know, they often visit," She said and stood up, wearing her slippers she walked towards the main door and I followed behind her.

Approaching closer to the door, a man in a white kurta and pants stood there, shorter than Vidyut in height, his body was leaner comparatively.

He turned finding Manya and me approaching the foyer,  "Amal ji," Manya said in a familiar note, with only an acknowledgement.