The Night My Husband Shared Me – Part 5: Only Him

Sunday morning came in slow and golden through the Indiranagar curtains.

I woke before Arjun. Lay on my side looking at him sleeping — the familiar face, the familiar slope of his shoulder, the way he always sleeps with one arm thrown over his eyes like even unconscious he is dramatic about it. I had looked at this face ten thousand mornings. It looked different this morning. Or maybe I looked at it differently.

I lay there for a long time just looking at my husband and feeling something so warm and so large in my chest that it was almost painful.

He woke slowly. Blinked. Found me looking at him.

“Hi,” he said, voice rough with sleep.

“Hi,” I said.

He looked at my face carefully the way he always does when he is trying to read me, running through things behind his eyes, checking.

“How are you,” he said. Meaning all of it. The whole enormous thing.

“Arjun,” I said. “I am so good. I am so completely good that I do not have a word for it.”

He exhaled — a long slow breath like he had been holding something. His hand came up and tucked my hair back from my face.

“Tell me,” he said. “Tell me what it was like. From your side.”

We had not done this yet — the real conversation, the one underneath the night. I shifted closer and put my hand on his chest and felt his heartbeat under my palm.

“Rahul was like being seen for the first time,” I said. “Completely. He looked at me like I was something he could not believe was real. That felt…” I searched for the word. “Like a gift.”

Arjun was quiet, listening. His hand moved slowly through my hair.

“Karan was different,” I said. “Karan was like being wanted so urgently that nothing else existed. He said everything out loud, exactly what he was thinking, exactly what he wanted. I did not know how much I needed to hear that until I heard it.”

“And last night,” Arjun said.

“Last night was everything,” I said simply. “All of it together. But the thing I keep coming back to–” I stopped.

“Say it,” he said.

“The moment you got off that chair and came and held my hand,” I said. “That was the moment. That was the thing that made the whole night make sense. Because you were there. You were with me the whole time.”

He was quiet for a moment. Then he said “I was never not with you.”

“I know,” I said. “That is everything Arjun. That is the whole thing.”

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He pulled me over so I was lying on top of him, my chin on his chest, looking up at his face. The morning was warm and quiet. From downstairs we could hear the chai vendor starting his rounds, the familiar Bangalore morning sounds beginning.

“Can I tell you what it was like from my side,” he said.

“Please,” I said.

“Watching you,” he said slowly, “with men who wanted you that badly. Watching you be completely yourself — unashamed, fully alive, in charge of everything. Priya I have loved you for six years and last night I saw a part of you that has been hidden for six years and it was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”

My eyes stung. I pressed my face into his chest.

“And it did not change anything,” I said quietly. “Between us.”

“It changed everything,” he said. “We are closer than we have ever been. We know each other better than we have ever known each other. How does that change things in any way that is bad.”

I lifted my head and looked at him.

“I want to do it again,” I said honestly. “Not immediately. But again. Is that–“

“Yes,” he said.

“You did not let me finish.”

“You were going to ask if it was okay,” he said. “Yes. It is okay. More than okay. I want to watch you like that again. I want to see you like that again. Whatever you want Priya.”

I looked at him for a long moment. Then I pushed myself up until I was sitting astride him and looked down at him in the golden morning light.

“Right now,” I said, “I want only you.”

His hands went to my hips immediately.

“Tell me,” he said. That quiet firmness in his voice that I loved.

“I want you slow,” I said. “No performance. No audience. Just you and me and all the time in the world.”

“We have all the time in the world,” he said.

“I know,” I said, and leaned down and kissed him in the slow golden morning with the city waking up outside and nothing between us — no secrets, no hunger, no thing carried alone anymore.

We took our time. A long Sunday morning time, the kind that belongs only to two people who know each other completely. He knew where to be gentle and I knew when to ask for more and there was no instruction needed and no dirty talk and no performance. Just us.

I came quietly, my face in his neck, his name a breath in his ear. He held me after like I was the most precious thing he had ever held.

We ordered biryani at noon. Ate it on the sofa watching a bad film. He fell asleep with his head in my lap and I ran my fingers through his hair and watched the Sunday afternoon light move across our living room floor.

This was also mine. This quiet ordinary love. This was also everything.

My phone buzzed. A message from Karan: Thank you both. I mean it. Also please never tell anyone this happened or I will die.

I showed it to Arjun when he woke up. He laughed — that full real laugh of his — and typed back: Your secret is safe. Also you snored in the chair.

Karan’s reply: I absolutely did not.

Rahul’s message came an hour later, characteristically brief: Priya is extraordinary. You are a lucky man. Both statements will not be repeated.

Arjun showed me. I smiled.

“He is right you know,” Arjun said, looking at me.

“About which part,” I said.

“Both,” he said.

I leaned over and kissed his cheek and went back to watching the bad film and outside Bangalore went about its Sunday and inside our flat everything was warm and quiet and exactly exactly right.

— End of Series —