A highway on the outskirts of Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India: 1953.

The bus from the city drew to a halt at the crossroads, and having descended the steps, Krishan paused momentarily to put a small canvas rucksack on his back. Then, once the overcrowded vehicle pulled away, its tail lights slowly vanishing into the darkness, the young man crossed the highway and began the final leg of his journey home along the dusty, moonlit road.

Usually, Krishan completed the walk to the village without meeting another soul, so when he left the crossroads, he was surprised to see a woman walking ahead of him carrying an oil lantern. He couldn’t make out her features as she was wearing a dupattā over her head and shoulders, but since she shuffled as she walked and was dressed from head to foot in white, Krishan guessed she must be an elderly widow. He decided to catch up to see if he could be of assistance.

The woman seemed unaware of his presence as he closed the distance behind her; instead, she continued singing a song Krishan didn’t recognise in a high, sweet voice. He noticed she had tied her sari too long, and the hem dragged on the road behind her. Not wishing to startle the woman, Krishan kicked up some dust as if by accident, and hearing the noise, the woman stopped singing and stood a moment, awaiting his approach.

“Aunty, do not be afraid,” Krishan called out. “I mean you no harm.”

The woman did not turn around or acknowledge his greeting. Instead, when Krishan drew alongside her, she started slowly walking again.

“Aunty, may I be of help? I am walking to the village. Would you like me to carry your lantern a while?”

When she turned to look at him, the lantern revealed that the woman was around eighteen and exceedingly beautiful. She looked up at Krishan demurely, then modestly lowered her dark gaze before pulling her dupattā more tightly around her face, seemingly to disguise a large bruise on her cheekbone.

“Forgive me, sister. I guessed from your garments that you were a widow, but I see now that your husband still lives,” Krishan said ruefully. “You are welcome in our village.”

“You do not recognise me, Krishan? Has it really been so long?” the woman replied.

Krishan didn’t know what to say. He was sure he would have remembered such a beauty had they met even once, but her face and voice were unfamiliar. He wondered how best to continue the conversation without appearing rude.

“I’m sorry, sister; my memory is poor. Remind me, how is it that we are acquainted?”

The woman answered as they walked. “We have always been acquainted, Krishan, since the day of your birth. My happiest memories are of times spent with you and your elder brother, as are my most sorrowful. Tell me, is he well, Ashok?”

Krishan was confused by her answer but decided not to press the issue lest it make him appear even more foolish. “He is well,” he said, still trying to work out who the woman could be. “Ashok is a doctor in the city and will marry soon.”

“He will not.”

The woman’s response surprised Krishan. “Sister, he will! The date is set for October, after the monsoon season. He should have married long ago; he is in his thirty-second year!”

“He will not marry,” the woman calmly repeated.

Had Krishan known the woman better, he would have challenged such an audacious assertion. Instead, he walked alongside her in silence, pondering the meaning of her words.

The woman began singing again, a tune more mournful and bitter than before. Krishan didn’t recognise it but followed the words carefully. The song was an evocation of the Dākinīs - demonesses in the retinue of the goddess Kālī - to avenge innocent women slain by cruel and heartless men. 

Although Krishan found the song disturbing, he couldn’t help but be entranced by the music that floated high on the evening air. Even as the woman wantonly summoned death and destruction from the heavens, he found himself surprisingly sympathetic to her murderous pleas. And as he watched her large breasts heave under her blouse with each deep intake of breath, he realised it was because he found the woman every bit as enchanting as her music.

“You sing with great feeling, sister,” he said when the lament reached its morbid conclusion. “Tell me, what person would write such a vengeful song?”

“Some songs are written,” the woman replied. “Others dwell in the heart of every woman. Only the wronged can give them a voice.”

Her discourse may have been unsettling, but the woman’s beauty and enigmatic words fascinated Krishan. Furthermore, her sorrowful, vulnerable demeanour appealed to his sense of chivalry, and Krishan felt a strong compulsion to assist the woman in whatever way he could.

“Do you have somewhere to stay when you reach the village, sister? The night is upon us, and my family will happily shelter you should you require safe lodgings for the night.”

“Your family has done enough,” the woman replied. “Besides, I, too, have family in the village.”

Krishan decided to stop asking the woman questions. Every answer she gave seemed only to leave him more confused. What had his family done to help her, and which of the village families did she belong to? He suspected that to ask would be futile, but he was satisfied as long as he knew the woman had somewhere safe to spend the night.

They reached the village, and Krishan prepared to bid the woman goodnight. He couldn’t help feeling that she had found his company more of an irritation than a reassurance, and enamoured as he was by her beauty and grace, he suspected the attraction was far from mutual. So Krishan was surprised when the woman suggested they walk together a little longer.

“I would like to visit the river once more,” she said. “Will you accompany me to the ghat?”

“Of course, sister,” Krishan replied. “But do you not wish to pay your respects to your family first?”

The woman ignored the question and determinedly led Krishan along the wooded path towards the river.

The ghat was a long terrace of shallow concrete steps leading to the river foreshore. During daylight hours, the steps were busy with villagers and pilgrims washing, fishing, and conducting religious rituals on Ganga’s banks. But, as night fell, the ghat became a place of tranquillity, peace, and seclusion. When the woman silently led Krishan out of the trees, not a soul could be seen, and the only evidence of human activity was a hastily constructed funeral pyre on the foreshore, dimly illuminated in the moonlight.

“It is for my neighbour,” Krishan explained. “He will be cremated in the morning.”

“Baba,” the woman said sadly. “He was a good, honest man, and soon he will be at peace.” 

Krishan briefly wondered how the woman could know of the old man’s death since the news had only been announced earlier that day and could not have travelled far. But her use of the term ‘Baba’ indicated that she must be his granddaughter, and finally, Krishan began to piece the puzzle together. The woman’s white garments were mourning attire. Her other belongings would presumably follow by car or rickshaw, but tonight, she would stay with her family at her grandfather’s house in a sombre vigil over his lifeless body. No wonder she wanted to put off going for a while, Krishan thought.

“Come,” the woman said. “My journey has been long, and the road dusty. Please, stand over my clothes while I bathe?”

“Of course, sister,” Krishan replied. “Then I will return you safely to your lodgings.”

The woman led him to the ghat and descended the steps sideways, seemingly with difficulty and all the time holding Krishan’s hand for support. Once they reached the foreshore, she dropped his hand, walked towards the funeral pyre and slowly shuffled around it as Krishan watched from the steps.

“Unless the skull cracks, the soul cannot be released,” the woman said, touching the dung-filled woodpile. “The spirit remains earthbound, restlessly walking among the living and never finding peace.” 

“I do not know of such things,” Krishan replied before adding, “I am sorry for your loss, sister.”

The woman nodded a respectful acknowledgement of Krishan’s condolences before elegantly pulling the dupattā from her head to her shoulders. “Now, please…” she said coyly.

Realising it was time to avert his eyes, Krishan turned his back, allowing the woman to undress. The urge to turn around and watch proved difficult to resist and Krishan admonished himself for wishing to intrude upon the privacy of a vulnerable, grief-stricken young woman. But when he heard the swish of the water as she waded into the sacred river, he succumbed to temptation and discreetly looked over his shoulder.

Although Krishan glimpsed the woman for little more than a second, the image was impossible to forget. With her arms extended sideways for balance, he could see only the hint of the woman’s large breasts, but her pinched waist, wide hips and firm bottom were brightly moonlit as she walked deeper into the stream. Between her slender thighs was the silhouette of a thick dark bush matted from the water, and a train of jet-black hair cascaded halfway down her back. Stripped of her sari, Krishan could now see the woman was in the early months of pregnancy.

He immediately felt his body react as the woman’s naked beauty became seared into his mind. Wearing only short trousers, he knew his erection would be unmissable once she finished bathing. But no matter how hard he tried, the sight of her nakedness wouldn’t leave him, and rather than softening, Krishan felt his shaft becoming firmer still.

The woman seemingly enjoyed the cooling river, and it was a few minutes before Krishan heard the dark waters move again as she waded through the shallows and back onto the foreshore. Regretting his earlier intrusion and embarrassed by his ongoing condition, he chose not to attempt a second look as the woman gently shook herself dry, put on her petticoat and blouse, and retied her sari in the dim lantern light.

“Was the river refreshing, sister?”

 “Yes, Krishan,” the woman replied while she finished dressing. “The waters become me, as once I became them. Now, come. Sit with me a while on the ghat.”

“Are you sure, sister? Should you not return to your family now?”

“Yes, I am sure. And do not be embarrassed by your arousal. It is natural for a young man, is it not? I am glad that you find my nakedness alluring.”

Krishan couldn’t understand how the woman could be aware of his erection. All this time, he had been standing with his back to her. How had she noticed, particularly in the moonlight? And how could she have known he had watched her as she bathed?

Krishan took the rucksack from his back and carried it in his hands to disguise the bulge in his shorts. “I am sorry I looked,” he said as he sat cross-legged opposite her on the dusty concrete step. “It’s just that you are so beautiful, and I have not yet lain with a woman or seen a woman undress. I was curious, and I apologise for my unforgivable intrusion.”

The woman seemed more shocked at the revelation of Krishan’s virginity than she was by his admission of guilt. “You are eighteen and have never lain with a woman? Why is this, Krishan? Are you in love with a woman you cannot attain, or is the company of men a pleasure you prefer?”

“Oh, no, sister! I like only girls, but I am not in love. I think it is good to stay chaste for the woman I will eventually marry, do you not agree?”

It was quickly apparent that the woman did not.

“Krishan, you are a good man but a foolish one,” she said disdainfully. “Do you think a woman will respect a husband who knows less of the world than she? Even now, your liṅga strains for the touch of a woman, yet you will do no more than pleasure yourself until you marry? You must learn to pleasure others, Krishan. Otherwise, you will never satisfy a wife.”

The woman’s rebuke surprised Krishan, but, on reflection, he thought that perhaps she was right. Maybe chastity until marriage was as inadvisable as it was frustrating. It was the first thing the woman had said all evening that made sense.

But Krishan couldn’t have anticipated what the woman would say next.

“You may lie with me now,” she announced, gripping his forearms tightly and looking deep into his eyes. “Allow me to unburden you of your childish ways and return you to the village a man. And let me once more feel the weight of a man upon me, a pleasure I have too long been denied. Krishan, you have served me well tonight, but I request this one thing more.”

As aroused and captivated as he was, Krishan was shocked at the woman’s unseemly suggestion. She should have been attending to her family and grieving the loss of her grandfather, not enticing him into an indelicate tryst. Besides, the woman was married, and her swollen belly belied her claim to chastity. The right thing to do was to accompany her back to the village before the situation became even more indecorous. 

Krishan reluctantly resolved to bring their brief association to an end. “Sister, your words and beauty lay temptation before me, but what you suggest would not be right! To take advantage of you in your grief would bring disgrace upon me and my family. I must take you to your lodgings straight away!”

But the woman reached out and gently laid her hands on Krishan’s head, whispering under her breath. Immediately, he felt his doubts, fears, and once-unshakeable sense of decorum vanish as the woman seemed to drain all such thoughts from his mind into her own, only to cast them adrift on the soft evening breeze. In their place, he was filled with a compulsion to seize the carnal satisfaction he had denied himself for so long and which was now within his grasp.

Krishan’s senses were briefly afforded a luxurious foretaste of the heady sensations he would experience as he climaxed inside the young beauty: the smell of her arousal, the purring of her sweet voice, and the tightness of her soft folds as he roughly filled her firm, trembling body. The ability to resist such exquisite gratification was beyond the gift of any man, and Krishan reluctantly found himself submitting to the basest of his masculine instincts.

“Forget what the world demands of you, Krishan,” the woman said softly. “Think only of your wishes, thoughts and dreams, for with self-knowledge comes wisdom, and with wisdom, happiness.” The woman removed her hands from his head and looked beseechingly into his eyes once more.

“Sister, if it allows you to find solace in your loss, I will lie with you,” Krishan replied.

A cloud drifted across the moon as Krishan stood to remove his clothing, and the ghat slowly descended into impenetrable darkness. The light from the lantern flickered and faded to little more than a weak glow, and the last thing Krishan saw with any clarity was a deep yearning in the woman’s eyes. Then, the lamp crackled and petered out completely.

Unperturbed by the pitch blackness, the woman knelt before Krishan’s naked, sinewy body on the foreshore. “Tonight, you will discover what it is to take pleasure from a woman,” she said, grasping his member and stroking it back to full tumescence. “Deprive yourself of nothing, for your complete fulfilment will bring me great happiness in return.”

As she slowly took his tip into her mouth, an enormous sense of calm and well-being overcame Krishan. The sensations were extraordinary as the woman retracted his dark prepuce and squeezed the first drops of his arousal onto her tongue. And when her lips opened wide, and she took his length deep into her throat, he felt his sack tighten, and he drew back his head in silent, unbelieving ecstasy.

And Krishan’s emotional rapture was every bit as overwhelming as his feelings of somatic bliss. At once, he was cleansed of the last vestiges of his adolescent naivety, and illusions of immense power and strength surged through his pulsing veins. He felt virile, redoubtable and indomitable, and the woman’s words only stimulated him more. 

“Do you feel it, Krishan?” she said. “Do you feel what it is to become a man yet?”

Krishan felt it, and it was as empowering as it was overwhelming. Every cell and synapse buzzed as endorphins coursed through his body, leaving him frantic and insatiable in his longing for sexual satisfaction.

The woman pulled away, instead using her hands to stimulate Krishan’s pulsing member. “Come. Lie beside me,” the woman softly said. “Allow yourself to relax and enjoy the sensations your body has awaited these long years.”

 Krishan lay on the foreshore and felt the woman’s mouth envelop his length again. The brow of her dupattā rubbed on his naked abdomen as she knelt between his wide-open legs, and he cradled her head in his hands when she began expertly moving her mouth over his shaft. Concerned he would ejaculate prematurely, he suggested she stop and allow him to satisfy her similarly.

“No, Krishan. Think only of your release,” the woman said. “With your pleasure comes mine.” 

The woman went down on him again, and Krishan gripped her damp dupattā as she moved her head lower, taking him deep into her throat. It soon became clear he wouldn’t be able to hold back much longer.

“Sister, I feel it strongly,” he cried, a note of panic in his voice.

 But rather than slowing down, the woman only increased the depth and cadence of her ministrations. Eventually, Krishan felt the unmistakable onset of his orgasm, and with a grunt, he began to unload his pent into the woman’s mouth. Each upward thrust induced another intense spasm as he relinquished years of frustration onto her soft palate. He thought she would pull back once he began to ejaculate, appalled at his selfish lack of control. But the woman was unremitting, sucking deeply and greedily on his root, even when his tip squirted its release deep into her pharynx, and she coughed streams of thick white fluid from her mouth and nostrils onto Krishan’s abdomen.

When his sensations finally abated, the woman continued slowly sucking as if trying to draw every drop of the life-bringing fluid from Krishan’s body. He sighed as she finally released his glans and licked his shaft and abdomen clean of his mess.

Krishan heaved the warm evening air into his burning lungs. He felt for a moment that he would never recover his strength, and nor did he want to as rapturous waves of joy, peace, and contentment seemed to consume every fibre of his being. It was a rush like nothing he had experienced before; an intoxicating mix of physical, emotional, and spiritual satisfaction, leaving him light-headed, giddy, and euphoric.

But, although his body cried out for rest and a chance to savour his moment of bliss, his desperation to taste more of the sweet stupefaction the woman had induced so effortlessly was keener than ever. He would not allow his body’s temporary weakness to deprive him of such delights. Besides, his shaft remained as rigid as ever when the woman touched it and gently stroked his glans with her thumbs.

“Was my gift to your liking?” she asked. “How does it feel to wet a woman’s mouth, Krishan, huh?”

Krishan was barely able to respond. “It was… wonderful,” he eventually whispered.

“It was the first of four gifts you will receive tonight,” the woman said. She smiled as his stiff shaft twitched expectantly in her fingers. “And your body tells me you are ready to receive the second, even so soon after the first! Is this not so?” 

Krishan’s breath had barely returned, and his heart was still beating out of his chest, and yet, the words came. “Yes, sister. I am ready.”

“But you are weary, so allow me to attend to you,” the woman said as she gathered her skirts around her waist, moved his legs together, and knelt upright astride his ankles.

Still blinded by the darkness, Krishan felt the woman drop her skirts and reach for something, and he realised it must be the extinguished lantern. He heard a small metal drawer open and close and the sound of liquid being poured from a flask. He smelled castor oil and felt it drip onto his body before the woman’s fingers gently rubbed it over his erection.

“My second gift to you is yet more precious,” the woman told him earnestly. “It is one prized by many men but bestowed upon few.”

Shuffling forward, she again pulled her long skirts up, tucking them under one arm. She positioned herself astride Krishan’s midriff, then lowered herself downwards, gripping his length firmly in her free hand.

Krishan let out a long, contented groan when he felt his oil-covered tip press at the woman’s opening. Then, she eased her hips lower, and he sensed a brief moment of resistance before the woman gasped as his tip entered her. With her back ramrod straight, she dropped her hips further, slowly taking him inch by inch until Krishan could feel she had taken him to the root.

The woman relaxed, spread her skirts around her knees and bottom, and rested her hands on Krishan’s bare chest. “How does it feel, Krishan?” she asked. “Does my tightness arouse you?”

By now, Krishan was almost beyond speech. “Yes, sister. Your yōnī is soft and welcoming,” he uttered between short breaths.

The woman giggled mischievously. “It is not my yōnī that grips you so. Tightness such as this can only be found elsewhere,” she said, rocking back and forth on Krishan’s shaft.

In his disoriented state, it took Krishan a few moments to process the woman’s words. But even in the darkness, the woman seemed to recognise the look on his face when the realisation finally dawned.

“That is right, Krishan,” she said, gathering pace until she was moving quickly up and down, riding his full length eagerly. “The men who visit the randees in the city pay handsomely for pleasure such as this. Is it to your liking?”

 Krishan could no longer respond. It was as if she knew his every secret longing and how to satisfy them tenfold.

“Sister, I do not know what I have done to deserve such a gift, but I pray, do not stop! My body is weak, but do not stop until you weaken it further.”

The woman rode Krishan more urgently, gripping his length tightly and urging him towards his second climax. “You feel the need to expel your warmth into me, do you not, Krishan? Fill me, and take possession of your gift. Take it, Krishan! Take my gift now!” 

Feeling his second orgasm approach, Krishan gathered his remaining strength and thrust his hips into the woman’s depths. Eventually, his balls tightened, and he felt a surge of fluid welling in his tip. With a final heave, he exploded inside her, his shaft pulsing and throbbing with each thick spurt.

“Yes, Krishan! Fill my gudā as you did my mouth! Do not stop until your body is satisfied!”

Krishan’s loins strained to meet the woman’s demands, but although each twitch of his shaft dumped yet more salty fluid inside her, his physical stamina was now wholly spent. With a pained cry, he allowed his hips to crash to the ground, and he became still as he fought to fill his aching lungs with air.

Usually, Krishan would have been worried about quite how weak he had become, but instead, his emotional rapture had reached a new high, and his body’s discomfort was of little consequence. Like the desperate opium users, his need for transient pleasure had subverted all temperance, leaving him debilitated and powerless but euphoric. And even as the woman eased herself off his still-throbbing phallus, his thoughts had already turned towards the next fix of her intoxicating, addictive eudemonia. He awaited his third gift with relish.

Again, the woman went down on Krishan, eagerly cleansing him of the oily semen that coated his length, and then she knelt between his twitching legs, stroking his erection gently.

After a moment, she spoke. “Tell me, Krishan, how does your body respond to my gifts?”

“I am weary beyond words,” Krishan gasped. “But your gifts give me pleasure and contentment beyond any I have known. I still do not know why I am deserving of such a heavenly bounty. Tell me, sister! Why do you attend to me so?”

“You know why, Krishan,” the woman replied. “I told you; you are a good man. Even now, you demonstrate your goodness; you sacrifice every ounce of your strength to give me all I desire. Is this not so?”

"Yes, sister," Krishan stammered. “But you have given me tenfold in return. You have made me a man, completed me, and endowed upon me great happiness.”

“Before, you were confused about what it is to be a husband, Krishan. Like a Sannyasin, you believed abstinence would make you a worthy man, but I have shown you this is not so. Is this not what you will do should you marry, Krishan? Give all of yourself to a woman in return for the completeness and happiness you in turn receive from her?”

Krishan was too exhausted to think clearly, but the woman’s words seemed to make sense. “Yes, sister, it is so.”

“Then, I am right; you are a good man. But, still, you lack wisdom. That will come before sunrise, but first, you must learn what it is to give a woman the thing she prizes more than any other.”

 Again, the woman tucked her skirts under one arm and straddled Krishan, this time in the reverse position. She quickly took him deep inside her, and he felt her thick, dark bush close around his root as she ground her sex on his firm pubis. 

Krishan could do no more than slip his hands under the woman’s skirts and loosely hold her as she bucked and writhed on his pulsing shaft. Whereas before their lovemaking had appeared centred on Krishan’s pleasure, it was now apparent that the woman was concerned only with her own satisfaction.

Krishan felt her fingertips brush his sack when she held up her skirts and frantically rubbed herself, desperately chasing her orgasm. Then, she squatted over Krishan’s limp body, her hands gripping his legs as she repeatedly took his length to the root.

Eventually, her breathing became laboured, and she began moaning until finally, she dropped onto all fours, her body trembling as she succumbed to her crisis. 

As her orgasm ebbed, the woman ground back and forth on Krishan’s length again, pressing her hands against her breasts as she arched her spine and threw back her head. Krishan’s body became slick with the woman’s wetness as her engorged lips glided effortlessly across his pubis.

In almost no time, her second climax came upon her, and as she knelt upright, Krishan felt himself slip out. Intense gasps followed as the woman finished herself off by hand, her fingers flicking noisily over her damp, aching sex. Then, as her body jackknifed from the intensity of her finish, Krishan heard her groan loudly, and a steady trickle of her wetness soaked his lower abdomen.

There was a long pause as the woman dropped to her hands and knees once more. It seemed for a moment that she was spent, her body drained of its lust-fuelled fortitude. But, as her breathing slowed once more, she swung her leg over Krishan’s body again and adjusted her position, this time straddling him face-to-face.

As she continued riding him more languidly than before, Krishan felt his orgasm build again. The woman gently stroked his head as his face became agitated and his breathing fast. “Now, Krishan. Now is the moment you truly become a man. The gift every woman treasures more than any other is the gift of life. Restore life to me and my unborn; quicken our hearts even as yours slows, and join me in the life eternal.”

Krishan felt his hips heave one last time as he softly filled her inner folds. Although the movement was almost imperceptible, the woman gasped as his warmth flooded her a third time. “Yes, Krishan! It is done,” the woman said, stroking his head as she rocked gently backward and forwards, draining the last of Krishan’s semen. “The gifts you have received thus far are but nothing to what awaits.”

The woman eased herself off Krishan’s softening member and stood at his feet. She reached skyward and rolled back the clouds with a wave of her hand, and as she did so, the moonlight returned. Krishan didn’t know if he was alive, dead, or amid an extraordinarily vivid dream.

“Krishan, do not worry - you live,” the woman said as she shuffled to his side and knelt. “I promised you four gifts, did I not? And you have had but three. I told you wisdom would be your final gift. It is so, but to attain such understanding, you must forget everything you once thought faithful and true. Are you ready to take such a step?”

Krishan’s throat and lips were dry, and after a few weak attempts at speech, he realised the words would not come. Instead, he reached out a frail arm and rested his hand on the woman’s, squeezing it once.

“Very well then,” the woman continued. “Krishan, when we met tonight, you did not remember me. Is this still so?”

A gentle squeeze of her hand confirmed that it was.

“Then, let me remind you of how I am known to you. But, upon hearing my tale, you will have wisdom beyond the understanding of men. Are you still sure you wish to receive such a gift, knowing what it will mean?”

Another squeeze of the hand.

“It is a sad tale but one you must hear,” the woman began. “My parents died of coughing sickness, so I came to live with Baba in the village, close to your home. Your mother was large with you then, and when you were born, there was great celebration. After many dead children, your parents hoped Ashok would finally have a brother who lived. So it proved.

“Our families were close, and I became like an older sister to you in your earliest years. Many happy days were spent playing with you and caring for you when your mother was doing her tasks. I did not tell your mother this, but your first word was spoken to me.” The woman smiled.

“Your parents and Baba decided that Ashok and I should marry one day. I was very happy to be betrothed to such a handsome, intelligent man and wanted to be married soon, but Ashok was more interested in his studies. He was glad to know I would one day be his wife, but his mind was on medical school, and he wanted no talk of marriage until his studies were complete.

“But your brother is an avaricious man, and although unwilling to make me his wife, he was content to lie with me nonetheless. One day, I discovered I was with child and did not know what to do. I said nothing to Ashok or Baba, but as my belly swelled, Ashok discovered my secret.

“A great argument followed. Ashok knew your parents would force him to marry, and he would have to give up his dreams of being a doctor. I told him I did not need a doctor for a husband and that I would be happy with a simple life and our baby, but this put him into a violent rage. He struck me once only, but he did not know that my body could not withstand the blows many women suffer daily. I did not recover.

 “He took me to the river, tied rocks inside my clothing, and dropped me from a boat. And there I remain.”

Tears once more began to well in the woman’s eyes as she concluded her tale. “Baba was desperate to find out what had become of me, but nobody cared about the life of a village orphan, and soon I was forgotten by all but Baba.

“Even when he gave up hope of my safe return, Baba remembered. Every day, he thought of me during his puja and prayed for the safe passage of my soul. But now he is dead, I am truly forgotten, even by the man who ended my life and now thinks himself worthy to be a husband.

“He will not marry, and I will be remembered.”

Krishan felt a tear roll down his hollow cheek. The woman turned to face him and extended her hand. “Come, I have another man to visit tonight.”

His strength restored, Krishan grasped the woman’s hand and pulled himself upright. After one backward look at his shell-like, emaciated body, he picked up the lantern, held the woman’s hand, and shuffled with her back along the foreshore.

︶︶︶ ⊹ ︶︶︶⠀୨♡୧⠀︶︶︶ ⊹ ︶︶︶

Epilogue

churel (chu·​rel, chu̇ˈrāl) noun, pl - s 1. a goblin. 2. specifically, a female ghost of Indian folklore. Women who die in childbirth or pregnancy due to negligence or mistreatment are said to turn into churels. Churels live in deserted places, crossroads, and places associated with death. They avenge their early deaths by going for the males of the family who wronged them, starting with the youngest. Churels are often described as hideous, with feet turned the other way around; however, they can appear as youthful, beautiful maidens in an attempt to lure young men. They drain their victims’ blood, semen, and virility, transforming them into old men.

︶︶︶ ⊹ ︶︶︶⠀୨♡୧⠀︶︶︶ ⊹ ︶︶︶