Gita

Avi touches me only when I’m asleep. I like it, too, especially because he doesn’t know that I know.

Besides, I’ve always only been touched this way.

Doesn’t mean it’s any less work for me. I must still “seduce” him. So, every night before bed, I dab his favorite perfume on my neck and wrists. A floral scent, with hints of rose and jasmine, which was my Thatha’s favorite also. I comb my dark, long hair, braiding it neatly, not a strand out of place. I apply lotion on my face and body. Pretend like there’s no one else at home, only me, as he watches me get ready through half-closed eyes. He thinks he has James Bond level stealth. I see his reflection in the bathroom mirror. See him on the bed, furtive, nibbling at the skin on his thumb, nervy.

I get into my nightgown, leave the underwear on as Avi likes a challenge.

Avi

Normie sex is a yawn. I’m so giddy right now I can’t breathe. This tingling, electric sensation I feel in my ankles, climbs up my knees, my stomach, migrating to my crotch. Like I’ve overshot my stride and missed a stair. It’s thrilling knowing that I can do whatever to her and she’ll never know.

Gita

Now, I wait. A log in still water. In my favourite yoga pose—shavasana. No sudden movements.

Soon, the mattress shifts. He slithers toward me. Runs his fingers through my hair like combing through sand for gold, rubs my earlobe, plays with the bone behind my ear. Circles the bump at the top of my arm, a vaccine mark from my childhood. His touch stirs a memory: Thatha, Amma’s father, rubbing ointment on my bruises after I fell from my bicycle, his hands going to places on my body that weren’t even hurting.

It’s been an hour since we’ve been in bed. Avi’s patience is award-worthy. He’s the Gandhi of patience. But he forgets I’m fucking Mandela. I outwait him.  Agreed, that if this were a movie, viewers will ask for their money back. To expedite action, while also risking spooking him, I pretend to scratch an itch on my leg, making the fabric crawl above my knee. I hear him gasp, then relax when my eyes remain closed. The mole on my upper right thigh always gets him going.

Roused, he pulls my underwear down, unhooks my bra.

Thatha always came to my room at night, sometimes even when my parents were home.

Avi

Sometimes, she opens her eyes and finds me on top of her. She never appears to be particularly disturbed by this. Yet, the next morning, I’ll say something like, “Did you know that some people sleepwalk. They do things at night of which they have no recollection the next day.”

“Huh. I did not know that.”

That night, I scrub the toilet after she goes to bed and claim no knowledge of it in the morning.

“I don’t know. I swear.”

She interrogates me all day, gushing about how clean the toilet is. “You’re lying. You did it to surprise me, no?”

Gita

Once, I wasn’t in the mood to be groped by Avi. Even then, the voice in my head wanted me to let him have what he wants. Fuck that, I decided that day. I can stop this. I wasn’t eleven anymore. Avi wasn’t my Thatha. Avi was startled as I peeled my eyes open. I stared at him until his limbs twitched. He rubbed his eyes as if he was just waking up.

In the morning, he said that he suspects he had myoclonus. The condition where one’s muscles twitch or jerk suddenly, involuntarily.

Lol.

Avi

I’m close. I know she’s too. I just need a few more minutes of silence to concentrate.

But no. Our two housemates, aspiring jazz musicians, begin rehearsing. It throws me off my rhythm. I deflate. Not finishing is worse than thinking you didn’t have a shift at work the next day before discovering you do.

Many times, I’ve complained to the owner Bob, about this. He always says he understands how annoying it may be for us, that he’ll handle it. He never follows through. I’m thinking if he doesn’t do something about this, I’ll sort it out myself.

Gita

As a singer, the untuned instruments in the untrained hands of these morons makes me want to sharpen my kitchen knife. Yet, losers like them somehow have thousands of Instagram followers while I have a handful. Can others not feel their bodies turn inside out listening to this bullshit? Can they not discern between good and bad? The saxophone is off key, the cymbals are mistimed, the double bass is clunky, the plucking is heavy-handed, scratchy. Every note is a hammer to my skull.

Bob isn’t going to do shit. Avi isn’t going to do shit either. He’s a man-child with the confidence of a Touch-Me-Not plant, drooping at the slightest challenge or threat. I’d storm in there myself and ask them to shut the fuck up, but I’m afraid of angering men.

Once, Thatha overhead me almost telling Amma about him. The day after, when my parents were away at a wedding, he pulled me out of bed at one in the morning and into the bathroom, holding me by my neck under the cold shower as I struggled to fill my chest with air.

Avi

Tonight, I’m cooking penne with store-bought red sauce and near-expiry garlic bread. Both were on sale.

Gita

We don’t like sharing a home with strangers. It was alright when we were students. We want to move but can’t. Yet. Not on our minimum wage, working at stores where twenty-somethings liked playing managers. We came to Canada six years ago, on student visas, and still live like one.

I finally record myself singing the new movie song I’ve been learning for over a week. Several attempts later I’m finally happy with it enough to upload the video on my Instagram channel, Gitasings.

Later that night, after Avi rolls over to his side of the bed and is soon snoring, I visualize my inbox filling in with requests after requests by movie directors and music composers to work with me. That they heard me sing and think that I had the potential to make it big in the industry. Like clockwork, the voice in my head scoffs. You’re not that good, it’ll never happen for you. I try to swat the voice to the back of my mind.

Avi

I dream again, like every night, begging Amma to not send me away to the all-boys boarding school. As always, she tells me Appa knows best, that it’s for my own good.

And like every night, the matron is by my bedside.

No-no, please.

You’ll enjoy it, I promise.

I’m tired, please. Be a good boy. It hurts, please.

I can make you very happy.

No, please, Ma’am, please.

Gita

The smell of sizzling bacon drifts into the bedroom. Avi’s making breakfast. I text Colin, my manager, that I can’t make it to work. I may have Covid, I say.

I check the views on my reel. It has received one comment and two likes, from Avi and my mother. She’s only on Instagram so she can learn what’s going on in my life. I let her live in the fear that I can block her anytime.

The lone comment is a spam about sleeping disorders. “Happy Anniversary, Babe,” Avi chirps, handing me a rose. 

“And to you.”

“Have you heard of somnambulism,” he says, biting into his toast, making a loud, crunching sound, dropping the crumbs on the bed.

I prefer dipping mine into my coffee, letting my buttered toast soak in the liquid before sucking on it.  

“No.”

“I may have it.”

“Oh?” He’s forgotten that he’s already used this one.

“Apparently those who sleepwalk appear to be awake, but they aren’t and have little or no memory of what they do or say. Crazy, right?”

“You should see a doctor.”

I don’t know why he lies, why he tries to hide who he is.

“Yesterday, the Starbucks barista told me that I was so pretty I should be famous, ha-ha. He gave me a free coffee.” 

I like using his fears to hide my own.

Avi

I don’t know why I do what I do, don’t know how I got here, don’t know why she puts up with it. We’ve been married seven years, and I still worry, every day, she’ll abandon me. 

“Love you,” I say at the door and hope she believes me. She doesn’t say it back.

Gita

When I first told Avi I wanted to be a singer and not sell wine all my life, he looked concerned. Although, he chose his words carefully. “You can be…whatever you want, Babe.”

“What?” I said, “Fat people can be famous, too.”

He laughed, but his hesitation had confirmed my own limiting beliefs.

Avi

I call her at four. She doesn’t pick up, lets it go to voicemail. I bet she saw and ignored it. I leave a message anyway: See you tonight, babe. Happy anniversary, again, my love.

She leaves me on ‘read’.

Gita

Avi has already sent multiple texts until now, reminding me about the Malaysian restaurant we were going to for our anniversary dinner. That if we’re late, the staff will give our table to the next available guest.

I’m in the middle of recording another song, channeling the singers I admire. Shreya. Sunidhi. Pratibha. I position myself to accentuate the slim lines of my body, show the good side of my profile, left. I sing the lyrics from memory, but stumble repeatedly.

You look like shit, sound like shit, the voice goes again.

“You’re right,” I reply, deleting all the clips, including the ones from my phone’s trash, so that I don’t have even the slightest chance to accidentally post something I wasn’t entirely happy with.

I check my channel again and find that I have another like on my previous post. A blonde in a bikini. She has zero posts and 300K followers. The link in her bio takes me to her OnlyFans account.

The voice appears again: You’re nothing, you don’t matter, you never will.

“Fuck off,” I say.

The tall woman at the front desk has an afro that looks like a beautiful dark cloud. So stunning, I want to reach out, feel her scalp, feel the texture of her hair. Her skin is flawless and her outfit—a pair of black jeans and a crisp white shirt—fits her perfectly, the shirt ballooning out from her shoulder to her elbow before gathering at the wrist.

I tell her my name, and she smiles, her teeth even and straight. Collecting a hardbound menu, she asks me to follow her to the table in a sweet, practiced voice.

“Your husband has been waiting.” I suspect criticism in her voice.

The restaurant is packed. The moment Avi spots me, he leaps up, waving frantically, as though I might sit at another table if he doesn’t catch my attention. The hostess pulls out my chair gracefully before returning to her post.

Avi

“Happy anniversary, Babe.” I don’t know what else to say. I’m just thankful she came.

She forces a smile, has a look in her eyes, as if she has a plan she’s keeping from me. My back’s turned to the other diners.

“Is everything okay?” I ask, hoping she nods yes and says something like, Of course, everything is okay, because you’re here with me.

She’s restless, fidgety, reaches for her bag on the chair beside her. Changes her mind. Her hand trembles as she studies the menu. Her mind is elsewhere.

Finally, she tosses the menu aside and dives back into her bag, retrieving her phone. Then, starts recording.

Gita

“Welcome friends to Gitasings live. Today, I’m going to do what I should’ve done years ago.

Avi

“Babe?”

Gita

“I’m here today with my dear husband, Avi. Sweet, sweet Avi who’s treating me to dinner tonight on our seventh wedding anniversary. I think we’re ready, aren’t we, Avi?” I flip the camera, pointing at him.

“I know what you do to me at night.”

Avi’s body jerks, like he’s stepped into a puddle with a live wire. “You’re just like my Thatha.”

The hostess comes running. “Ma’am, you can’t record here.”

“I’m finally ready to come clean about years of abuse. Let me do this.” 

“Ma’am, I understand, but please. Not here.”

Gradually, the number of my viewers is climbing. I point the camera towards her. “Look, friends. Just like my mother, here’s another woman who doesn’t believe a word I’m saying.”

The hostess, unsure about how to proceed, scatters.

I change the camera to front-facing. 

The voice returns: What the fuck are you doing? I keep going.

“I was ten, when Thatha came to my room for the first time. I was crying for Amma. He began stroking my head, my arms, chest. Chest, chest, lower, lower, lower. I felt uncomfortable and pretended to be asleep thinking he’d leave. His hands were under my frock.”

Around us, people stop eating, talking, laughing. They squirm, gasp, stare.

Some call for the check.

“Every time my parents left the house, I was terrified, knowing he’d come, my Thatha who I loved so much.”

Avi is melting onto the table.

“He rewarded my silence, my obedience with gifts and dolls and chocolates. ‘I know you like it, too,’ he’d whisper in my ear.”

My viewers are in thousands now. My mother is one of them. I feel alive, seen, like I’m fulfilling my purpose on earth. I flip to the rear-facing camera.

“You’re…you’re just like him. Doing things to my body without my consent. You think I’m really sleeping?”

The audience continues to grow. Hearts and crying emojis filling the screen. 

“When I told my mother about what her father was doing to me, we were at McDonald’s. She sat across from me and my brother, her face unreadable. Our fries turned cold and soggy on the tray. I wanted her to believe me. Instead, she grabbed my wrists and screamed, ‘You must’ve asked for it. How many times did I tell you not to wear that revealing blouse?’”

Avi

“Sorry, I’m sorry.”

Gita

Avi weeps, like he does sometimes in his sleep.

I order us an Uber.

Avi looks out the window the entire ride, disappointed.

I check my phone. Over three hundred new followers. Hundreds of new likes, comments on my older posts.

“Look,” I say, showing him my screen. I’m aroused, excited about tonight. Avi averts his eyes.

We microwave leftover rice and paneer. We scroll on our phones.

We do the dishes.

We wipe the kitchen counters. We brush our teeth.

We wash our faces.

Avi

I watch her dab perfume, comb her hair. I feel nothing.

Gita

I’m playing dead again, an opposum. I wait and wait, but he’s not interested in consuming me tonight. My thighs clench on their own, a thrumming deep in my belly. The ache clings to me, the ache of wanting too much. And getting nothing.