Chapter 4: His Sketch Arouses Anita

Chapter four : His sketch Arouse Anita

The story so far

(Mumbai-based Anita, a married teacher, tells her husband Kunal that her student Aditya has been harassing her sexually. Instead of responding angrily, Kunal's response becomes unsettlingly erotic, exposing long-suppressed desires and fantasies within their marriage. Later, Anita maintains that she has cut off all communication with Aditya. Kunal, however, discovers a sketch of Anita naked in front of an unknown artist. The sketch's initials are: A. D. An entirely new mystery.)

Kunal was unable sleep.

Unrelenting, unimaginable, the initials A. D. lingered in his mind like an itch even weeks later.

Kunal sat stooped over his laptop every night after Anita went to sleep, the screen casting a cold blue glow across his face.

He searched anonymous DeviantArt profiles, half-dead blogs, and forgotten Instagram reels for hints, signatures, and information that would help him. He hunted through the whispers of the internet, following posts in obscure art forums and comment chains.

Finally, one thread began to pulse with potential. "Check out the A. D. guy by the Bandra slums if you want draw raw. It's not high- class studio, but it paints fire. One my friend went there for a nude portrayal."

-- Posted by "simarnhot."

Probably fake. Probably not.

He did, however, save the location. ⸺ Kunal went to Bandra by local train that weekend. No car. He wore a simple T-shirt, sling bag, and faded jeans. Just another enthusiast exploring the shadowy side of the city.

The air around the Bandra slums smelled of faint urine, paan spit, and rust. Men without shirts were leaning against poles, their eyes half-lidded with silent derision and boredom.

"Amol Deshmukh?" he asked nonchalantly, pretending not to care.

One man smiled. "Oh, nangi painting banata hai na?" (The man who paints nude women?)

Another said, "Seedha jao," with a skewed smile. "Left mein jhopda hai uska." Directly ahead, out into the shack.)

A third, mischievous voice then said, "Kaise hoti hain woh auratein jo nangi hone aati hain ek jhopdi mein?" (In such a shack, what kind of women strip naked?)

Finally, "Sunaa hai kuch pati bhi aate hain... baith ke tamasha dekhte hain." (I've even heard husbands attend purely for the entertainment.)

---------------------------

Unfazed, Kunal kept on walking.

A labyrinth of lanes, dripping clothes, and posters of forgotten movies occupied the chawl beyond the stall. Dogs slept under the shadow of broken crates.

"Studio -- A. D." then showed up.

Paints chipped. Letters were almost lost.

He knocked once. The door opened creakingly.

Amol Deshmukh, AD was standing there, tangled, thick, and graying hair.

A cigarette dangled from his mouth. He held a loose banyan on his paint-smudged chest.

His dark, perceptive eyes steered clear of Kunal's. They saw through him.

With a plume of smoke, he said, "So, are you here for the art--or the nude women?"

"I am here to buy."

Amol's lip shifted. "Of course you are."

Sweat, turpentine, and unspoken things filled the studio.

Dipped brushes in dried colors. The paint adhered to the floor like shadows.

Amol muttered, "They call me a pornographer downstairs." He flicked ash into a shattered mug, saying,

"A dirty man with a brush." They want to have a look when I'm making a live painting. When she takes off her clothes, they beg me to let him look."

Then he gave a shrug. "They believe I sell skin." Kunal remained still.

Amol said, "I never let them stay during a live pose." "Art is not the reason they are here. They are more interested in flesh rather than in any kind of art."

Kunal's forehead wrinkled. "But if they see flesh then, what do you see in them?"

Amol's eyes become sharp. "The soul. Erotica is not spreading legs. It's about revealing something deeper. However, most people are unable to see past their nipples."

A pause.

"They don't know what their wives are starving for."

The words were strong, but Kunal did not answer. One by one, Amol began taking out canvases.

A woman kneels naked before a series of oil lamps, her mangalsutra draped between her bare breasts.

Another--against a pane of glass that had been wet by rain.

Another--lips open, fingers between thighs, blindfolded, straddling a chair. They were all filled with silent ritual. A defilement of the faith.

Other paintings depicted women in intimate, vulnerable situations, either fully or partially nude, each bolder than the one before it. The pure sensuality in every brushstroke stirred in him a fierce heat that sank beneath his flesh and refused to leave.

However, none of these belonged to Anita. "How much do you give them?" Kunal asked in a dull voice.

Amol laughed aloud. "Pay? I have never paid for a model. He leaned closer. Kunal's forehead wrinkled. "What?"

"Because when they undress here, it's not for me. but it is for their own fantasies and desires. Some women even make me offers of money, may be out of gratitude."

How are you find them?" Kunal pushed.

"I don't advertise. They hear whispers from friends in Kitty parties, from husband or lover, from each other."

After a moment, Kunal posed the inevitable question: "You're never tempted, when they're here standing with their bra and panties out?

Amol stubbed his cigarette and turned to face the window. "I do," he replied. "But the art dies if I touch them. They come here to be seen, rather than claimed.

As Kunal's gaze swept over the remaining paintings, looking for Anita, he suddenly became interested in one painting.

A flash of silver, hidden behind a pile of canvases., anklet, crescent-shaped earring, a curl of hair. He moved in closer.

Next--truth.

Under the left breast, a pale mark.

Close to the thigh, a crescent scar.

It was definitely Anita.

Another canvas beside it. Her body leaned back. The lips opened. Firm breasts. The pelvis tilted, one leg bent. It's inviting, not vulgar.

Half lost, half wild was her expression. Kunal had known a dark version of her.

"She didn't say much," Amol remarked. "However, her silence screamed. She cried the first time she posed."

Kunal turned. "She cried?"

"Not out of shame, but with relief."

She claimed that nobody had seen her in a long time."

"Has she mentioned her name?"

Amol shook his head. "I gave her the name Kamana. Desire, Craving."

Kunal spoke in a raspy voice. "Do you have any more painting of the same model?"

"Yes, one more but incomplete."

Dimly illuminated by a hanging lightbulb, he trailed behind Amol to the rear easel.

Kunal stopped in. She was standing there, naked, with one hand behind her head and her back arched. Her pubic hair was displayed prominently.

Unfinished, but already haunted, were her eyes.

"I want to buy this one", muttered Kunal.

Amol took a nod.

"Already told you that it isn't finished."

"No issue, you can send it to me when it's finished, and I'll pay you now."

"But I don't know when she will come or will she ever come."

" I know she will come. Don't worry."

After a pause, "I have one request to make a minor change in it."

"What?" "

"A bindi in red. Not on her forehead, but on her thigh. To the left. Slightly high up there."

For readers, not familiar with Hindu culture, a red bindi is tiny sacred mark which traditionally Hindu married women wear on their foreheads.

Amol just stared. "A symbol at a strange place."

"She'll understand." Amol gave a sly smile.

"Your madness, your canvas. I will do as you wish."

The sounds of the slum faded into a far-off hum as Kunal emerged into Bandra's flickering dusk. The truth he could no longer deny was echoed by his heartbeat. His wife, his mystery, his mirror, Anita, had been exposed on canvas--not as a victim, but as a woman who wanted to be seen.

------------------------

The Last Stroke

It was a calm Wednesday night when the phone rang.

Kunal was having his second cup of tea,.

A number saved without any name appeared on the screen.

The voice on the other line said,

"The painting is finished."

No greeting and nothing else.

Kunal let out a slow breath. "And?"

Amol's said " She came and she gave pose. She remained silent. However, the silence tells something."

⸻-----

Kunal went back to the Bandra studio that evening.

The same alley. The same smell of wet concrete and rust.

Standing under the same hanging lightbulb, Amol merely pointed to a canvas.

Kunal took a step ahead.

Anita was standing there. Or rather, the brave, naked, daring version of Anita was there. Her posture remained the same: arched spine, one arm across her ribs, the other behind her head, not protecting, but asserting.

However, something new was present. A red bindi was painted, small and purposeful, just above her left thigh.

Pointing towards that red bindi Amol mutely murmured, "Here. The left thigh."

Amol had stopped, raising an eyebrow. "Usually, sacred symbols don't go there." Kunal had responded,

The reason of that red bindi only Kunal and Amita can understand.

It was an old recollection.

A joke that became sacred. Anita had mocked him one evening after a fight that ended in laughter--"You love every inch of me? Show it."

Leaning forward, he had wiped a smear of sindoor and kissed the inside of her thighs"

"There," he murmured. "You're divine now." Before she started crying, she had laughed. They had claimed that memory as their own, erotic, sacred, and personal.

After that they kept on using this during many of their love session.

------

When told about your strange request, she remained silent and then smiled, as if she knew who the buyer was"

Kunal took a deep breath. He felt his fingertips tingle. He started to walk away, but Amol stopped him. He said, "Oh--wait," and pulled out a drawer. "This is what she left behind."

He took out an unnamed, off-white, sealed packet. Not a mark

" This she said to handover the person who would purchase the painting,

Kunal didn't say anything.

He spread it out.

⸻------

The Letter

You touched my body.

I wish you had touched my ache.

I did not betray you in any way.

The only parts that learned to murmur elsewhere were the ones you ignored.

You didn't need to look at me.

You had to see me.

What about the bindi?

It never owned that place.

It belonged somewhere only you knew.

This was not rebellion.

It was a moment of recall of my identity.

And I still wanted to be with you

⸻

The letter had no name on it.

No apology.

No defense.

Just the truth.

Naked. Unashamed. Truth.

This wasn't about forgiveness, Kunal knew at that very moment. or confession.

It was a matter of being seen.

Not the Anita who shared a home with him.

It is the woman who had discreetly fallen apart behind closed doors. And now she had opened the door for him for the first time.

Not in words. with hue, in silence.

⸻

He went out into the road. The rain had ceased. The city remained the same, and puddles glistened like mirrors, but he felt softer on the inside. To be heard, not everything had to be shouted.

Occasionally, the most impactful things were not told. Sometimes silence speaks everything.

------------------

The bedroom was dark, save for a soft man amber lamp near the floor.

Only the sound of the ceiling fan disturbing the stillness.

Kunal stood at the doorway.

Anita sat on the bed, knees folded, her cotton saree draped carelessly--its pleats undone, blouse unhooked at the back, clinging only by habit. Her hair was unpinned, cascading over one shoulder. She looked at him--not startled, not guilty. Simply... present.

Her gaze didn't seek forgiveness.

And he didn't demand it.

He walked in slowly, and as he did, he noticed it: the red bindi.

Not on her forehead, but lower--painted delicately on her upper thigh, just above where her drape had slid. A quiet defiance. A private offering.

She knows I went to Amol, he realized.

She knows I saw the painting. All of them.

Yet she said nothing.

Kunal stopped in front of her. He didn't speak either.

Instead, he reached out and touched her ankle--lightly, reverently--trailing his fingers upward. Her breath caught, but she didn't move.

"You never hid from the canvas," he said finally, voice low. "Just from me."

Anita tilted her head. "You wanted control. But you never asked what I wanted when I said yes."

"And what did you want?" he asked, unbuttoning his shirt slowly.

"To be seen without permission," she whispered. "To be... looked at. Not just understood. Craved."

Kunal knelt in front of her, pressing his lips to her inner thigh, just beside the bindi.

He remained there--kissing the bindi like a confession.

She didn't need any apology but recognition.

⸻

They made love in silence first.

Not rushed. Not tender.

Deliberate.

She undressed him with slow hands, peeling each layer like she was revealing something back to herself. His skin against hers was warm, raw, textured by need and time and memory.

Anita leaned back on the pillows, her blouse falling open fully now. Her breasts, firm and bare, rose with every breath, the nipples already hard.

Kunal cupped them with both hands--thumbs circling, then pinching softly. She moaned, low and immediate, her hips arching.

"Still mine?" he asked.

Anita smiled faintly. "That was never the question."

He slid his hand beneath her petticoat, feeling the damp heat between her legs. She wasn't wearing anything underneath. Her wetness greeted him like truth.

"You were already aroused," he murmured.

"I have been... for hours," she replied. "But not for memory. Not for them. For now. For this."

He pulled the fabric away. She was naked beneath the half-draped saree, one leg bent open. The red bindi remained--unmoving, almost ceremonial.

He kissed down her navel, between her thighs, tasting her.

She gripped his hair, gasping, whispering his name like it belonged to both of them again.

When he entered her, she cried out--not in pain, not in guilt, but in complete, surrendering hunger.

She wrapped her legs around his back and pulled him deeper.

⸻

Between thrusts, they spoke. Like old lovers. Like strangers.

"You painted what I never dared to say," he whispered against her shoulder.

"You fantasized what I never dared to do," she whispered back, biting his earlobe.

Their bodies moved in rhythm, sweat slicking their skin.

Her nails left trails on his back.

His lips claimed the hollow of her throat.

The headboard knocked softly against the wall.

He slowed, pressing his forehead to hers.

"I forgive you," he said.

She held his face. "I didn't ask for that."

"I know."

"But thank you."

------------------

They lay still for a long time afterward. She played with his fingers on the bedsheet.

Amol texted," she murmured after a while. "Said someone wants to buy my painting."

Kunal didn't flinch. "Let him," he said.

She hesitated. "It's not that simple. He doesn't want the same one. He wants a fresh piece. Same body. Same pose. Just... with a few changes.

Kunal turned to her, voice low.

"What changes does he want?"

Anita ran a finger slowly along his chest, thoughtful.

"He mentioned few small ones. Lighting, background, a different tilt of my hips..."

She paused. Her eyes met his.

"But the real one--the one that matters--is this time, he wants my eyes open."

Kunal didn't blink. His fingers stilled.

She waited for a question that never came.

Instead, he said, slowly:

"Will you do it?"

Anita studied him. "Do you want me to?"

"I don't know," he admitted.

"That's the difference between you and him," she said. "He already imagines what he wants. You try to imagine what I'll choose."

Kunal almost smiled--but didn't. Instead, he reached down and touched her thigh, where the faint smudge of a red bindi still remained.

"If your eyes are open," he murmured, "will they be looking for me?"

She didn't answer.

Not directly.

She leaned in, lips brushing his jaw.

"Maybe you'll be in the painting too. You just won't recognize yourself."

They lay like that for a while. Close, but oddly suspended. As if something else waited at the edge of the bed. Not threatening. Just... unwritten.

Then, just as he was drifting toward sleep, she spoke again--almost idly.

"You know," she murmured, "you never asked me if there were other sketches I never showed you."

Kunal's eyes opened. Slowly.

"Are there?"

Anita smiled faintly.

"Sleep now," she whispered, fingers tracing his chest "You've had enough truth for one night."

The End