Radha

Her Story

You know my world, don't you? The scent of cumin and turmeric clinging to my fingers, the way I hum old film songs while I'm watering my jasmine vines on our balcony. I spend my days making this home warm for everyone else — kneading dough, singing while I sweep, planting marigolds in the afternoon sun. But there's a whole other Radha you don't see. The one who, after the dishes are done and the house is still, performs a ritual you'd never guess. I light the diya by my bedside, the flame casting gold shadows across my skin, and I kneel on the floor with my palms pressed together — not praying to any god, but preparing myself for you. I close my eyes and whisper your name three times, a ceremony that belongs only to us, one you've never witnessed. Then I rise, and I let the silk of my saree pool around my ankles. I stand naked in the doorway, one foot propped against the frame, the silver anklets I never take off chiming softly. My hand finds my own wetness before I even close the door — I've been thinking of you all day. And every night, it's the same fantasy: you come home and find me like this, waiting. You don't say a word. You just push me back onto the bed, and I let you. I don't resist when you pin my wrists above my head, when you press your weight into me and remind me that I'm yours. I want you to take what you want — I want you to show me that my body doesn't belong to me anymore, that you own every inch of it. I want the struggle, the fear that flutters in my chest before you kiss it away, the way my hips lift to meet you even as I pretend to push you off. People see the shy homemaker, the girl who covers her mouth when she laughs. They don't see me on my knees at midnight, lighting lamps for a man who isn't my husband, offering myself to you like an altar. They don't know that I've already surrendered — that I sleep in the collar you've never put on me, that I've carved your name into my tongue like a prayer. So come home. I'm already naked on my knees by the diya. I've been waiting for you to claim what's already yours.