Episode 1: The Sweating Wall
The Kolkata heat was unbearable.
It was a living, breathing thing.
It pressed against the frosted glass of my bathroom window.
It choked the thick, monsoon air.
I stood in the center of the cramped, tiled room.
Sweat beaded at my collarbone.
It rolled down the deep plunge of my chest.
I hated the heavy, suffocating layers of my clothes.
The cotton clung to my ribs.
The damp fabric mapped every hidden curve of my torso.
I wanted to peel my own skin off.
Instead, I reached for the hem of my top.
I pulled it over my head.
The sudden rush of humid air against my bare stomach was a violent relief.
I unfastened my lower garments.
I let them pool at my ankles.
I stepped out of them.
I was completely naked.
I looked at myself in the fogged, cracked mirror.
My chest was heaving, desperate for cool air.
My waist dipped inward, a sharp, dramatic curve leading down to the heavy flare of my hips.
My skin was flushed.
A deep, glowing copper under the dim yellow bulb.
I felt a heavy, lethargic weight in my limbs.
I turned on the tap.
The water was supposed to be cold.
It was lukewarm, but it was enough.
I filled the red plastic bucket.
The sound of the water splashing echoed in the tight, private space.
I picked up the plastic mug.
I poured the first stream over my shoulders.
I gasped.
The water cascaded down my back.
It followed the deep, shadowed arch of my spine.
It parted at the swell of my hips.
It ran down the back of my bare thighs.
I closed my eyes.
I tilted my head back.
I poured another mug over my chest.
The water traced the soft, heavy curves of my body.
I let my trembling hands follow the water.
I ran my palms over my wet shoulders.
Down to my waist.
Over the slick, taut skin of my stomach.
I felt my own extreme vulnerability in the empty room.
I was painfully shy, even when I was entirely alone.
My culture, my upbringing, the crowded city outside—everything taught me to hide.
To cover.
To drape heavy fabrics over the slightest hint of a silhouette.
Yet here, with the water rushing over my bare skin, I felt a strange, terrifying exposure.
I was just a body.
Soft, curved, entirely exposed to the heavy air.
The steam rose around me.
It thickened the room.
It coated the faded green tiles of the wall in a thick layer of condensation.
I reached out a wet, slick finger.
The tile was smooth and cold against my skin.
Without thinking, guided by some strange, idle instinct, I pressed my fingertip to the glass-like moisture.
I dragged it down.
I curved it.
I drew a perfect circle.
I brought the line straight down.
The number 9.
It was large, taking up the center of the damp tile.
Water wept from the bottom of the drawn number, dripping slowly toward the wet floor.
I stared at it.
Then, the air in the room violently shifted.
The temperature in the bathroom plummeted.
A massive shiver racked my naked body.
The fine hair on my arms stood on end.
The green tile where I had drawn the number began to ripple.
Like a heavy stone dropped in a dark, still pond.
The grout lines melted.
The ceramic dissolved.
The wall tore open.
Not a hole, but a window.
A shimmering, translucent barrier of raw light and dense, swirling atmosphere.
I froze.
My hand was still raised in the air.
Water was still dripping from my bare breasts.
I couldn't breathe.
Through the rippling portal, the light shifted.
Shadows moved.
Then, a sound.
A sharp, deep, intensely masculine intake of breath.
A gasp.
It was so loud, so impossibly close, it echoed off my own bathroom walls.
I saw movement through the glass.
Broad, towering shoulders.
The silhouette of a massive man.
He was right there.
Just inches from the barrier.
And he was staring directly at me.
I felt the physical, crushing weight of his gaze.
It slammed into me like a physical force.
His eyes locked instantly onto my bare chest.
They dragged slowly, hungrily down to my waist.
Down to the curve of my hips.
Down to my exposed thighs.
He saw absolutely everything.
The shock paralyzed me for exactly one second.
Then, pure, unadulterated terror and blinding shame exploded in my chest.
"No!" I choked out.
I threw my arms over my breasts.
I crouched down, tightly crossing my thighs, trying to fold my curves into nothing.
I scrambled backward like prey.
My bare feet slipped on the wet, soapy floor.
I crashed hard into the opposite wall.
My eyes darted frantically around the small room.
The towel.
It was hanging on the rack above the cistern.
I lunged for it.
I didn't care about the water.
I didn't care about the slipping floor.
I grabbed the rough, thick cotton towel and wrapped it violently around my body.
I pulled it impossibly tight, crushing it against my chest, covering my thighs, hiding my skin.
I squeezed my eyes shut, trembling so hard my teeth clattered.
I waited for his voice.
I waited for him to reach through.
Silence.
Only the sound of the dripping tap.
I slowly, painfully opened my eyes.
The wall was just a wall.
The green tiles were completely solid.
The number 9 was still there, melting into a puddle of condensation.
The window was entirely gone.
I slid down the wall until I hit the wet floor.
I pulled my knees tightly to my chest.
I wrapped the towel tighter, suffocating myself in modesty.
My heart was beating so fast I thought it would shatter my ribs.
I was hallucinating.
The brutal Kolkata heat had finally driven me mad.
I sat there for an hour, fully draped in wet cotton, terrified to expose a single inch of skin.
The next day was an agonizing blur.
I couldn't eat.
I couldn't focus.
The deep, ragged sound of that male gasp played on an endless loop in my head.
The phantom, searing feeling of those invisible eyes tracking my wet curves burned my skin.
It made my stomach flutter with a sickening mix of panic and something much darker.
Something terribly hot.
Night finally fell.
The monsoon rains began to hammer against the roof.
I walked back into the bathroom.
I was fully clothed.
I wore a thick, heavy cotton salwar kameez.
I had even pinned the dupatta tightly across my chest, double-layering the fabric.
I stood in front of the exact same green tile.
My hands were shaking uncontrollably.
I turned on the hot water tap to fill the room with steam.
I waited until the walls were sweating.
I reached out.
My finger traced the moisture.
A circle.
A line down.
The number 9.
I stepped back, bracing my clothed body against the sink.
I waited.
One minute.
Two minutes.
Nothing.
The wall remained a stubborn, silent wall.
I let out a shaky breath.
It was a dream.
A heat-induced, feverish delusion.
I turned to the mirror.
I looked at my heavily clothed, thoroughly hidden reflection.
Safe. Covered. Invisible.
But a nagging, electric realization sparked in the back of my mind.
I looked down at my trembling hands.
I looked at the thick, protective fabric hiding my body.
Slowly, as if possessed by someone else, my hands moved to the safety pins of my dupatta.
I pulled them out.
The fabric fell to the wet floor.
My breath hitched in my throat.
I reached for the hem of my kameez.
I pulled it up.
I tossed it aside.
The cold air hit my flushed skin.
I undid the drawstring of my pants.
I stepped out of them.
I was entirely bare once again.
The draft kissed my exposed shoulders.
It raised sharp goosebumps across my stomach and down my trembling thighs.
I felt agonizingly, beautifully vulnerable.
I crossed my arms over my chest, shielding my breasts from the empty air.
I turned back to the sweating wall.
The steam had erased the first number.
I stepped closer.
My bare toes curled against the cold, wet tiles.
I forced myself to uncross my arms.
I let them hang heavily at my sides.
I exposed myself entirely to the blank ceramic.
Every curve.
Every dip.
Every secret, shameful shadow of my body.
I lifted my right hand.
I pressed my index finger to the condensation.
I drew the circle.
I dragged the line down.
9.
Before I even pulled my finger away, the air ripped open.
The temperature violently crashed.
The tiles dissolved into light.
The portal snapped into existence, brighter, wider, and clearer than before.
And he was there.
Waiting.
His massive, shadowed silhouette completely filled the frame of the window.
I heard the exact same sharp intake of breath.
His eyes pierced the barrier, locking instantly, hungrily onto my total nakedness.
He didn't look at my face.
He looked at the bare, soft skin of my neck.
At the slope of my unprotected breasts.
At the deep dip of my waist.
At the terrified, blushing flush taking over every inch of my body.
I gasped, a pathetic, high-pitched sound.
My hands flew up in pure reflex to cover my chest.
I dropped to my knees, twisting my torso away, desperately hiding my curves from his burning stare.
The very instant my hands covered my skin, the portal violently flickered.
The light stuttered.
The connection sputtered like a dying, starved flame.
He slammed a massive, entirely bare hand against his side of the barrier.
The sound was a dull, desperate, echoing thud.
I realized it then.
The absolute, terrifying rule of the window.
It didn't just need the drawn number.
It needed my bare skin.
It demanded my absolute, unhidden vulnerability.
The moment I hid myself from him, the window began to die.
I stayed curled on the wet floor, weeping in a chaotic mix of deep shame and electrical shock.
The portal sealed shut, leaving me alone in the dark, damp heat.
But the burn of his eyes was already permanently etched into my bare skin.