There's a silence only skin remembers.Not the silence of night.The silence between the last kiss and the first cry.Between fire… and flesh.
302A. Midnight.
The bed still smelled like Rekha.
Jasmine oil.Coconut.Sweat and ash and the faintest trace of blood under the pillow.
Archa lay curled against the mattress.Naked.Hair still wet from ritual.Her fingers trembled at her lips.
She had touched herself three times tonight.
And each time, it wasn't for pleasure.
It was for memory.
"You are not her," she whispered to the walls.
"But I am no longer me, either."
Suddenly, the bell rang.
Once.
Then again.
Three knocks followed — urgent, male, hesitant.
She wrapped a shawl loosely over her shoulders and opened the door.
Witness.
Drunk.Shivering.Holding a folded note in one hand and a bottle of cheap rum in the other.
"I... I shouldn't be here," he said.
"But you are."
She stepped aside.
He entered.
They didn't speak for a long time.
He stood near the bed.She stood behind him, watching his back like it was a poem he hadn't finished writing.
Then, quietly:
"I saw you the day before she died."
"I know."
"You were moaning outside the window."
He didn't turn.
"I've never been touched... like that.
And she never laid a hand on me."
She moved closer.
"She made you moan without touching?"
"Yes.
She just... looked at me and said my name."
Archa smiled, painfully.
"She fucked all of us. With our own permission."
Then Witness turned.
Something burned behind his glasses.
He stepped forward.
"I don't want to write her anymore."
"Then write me," she said.
"No.
I want to be written this time."
And then he dropped to his knees.
Hands trembling.
He pressed his lips to her foot.
"Make me moan."
She didn't laugh.
Didn't hesitate.
She pulled him up.
Led him to the bed.
And whispered:
"Then forget what it means to be a man.
For one night, you are just skin."
What followed was not beautiful.
It was raw.Messy.Desperate.
He sobbed against her neck.Begged for things he didn't have language for.
She didn't dominate.She didn't seduce.
She simply opened.
And let him collapse into her.
At one point, he moaned so deeply, he vomited after.
Archa cleaned him.
Held him.
And kissed his forehead like Rekha used to do — once, long ago, after his first panic attack.
"You came, Witness," she whispered.
"Not with your cock.
With your grief."
Mandiram Rahasya. Morning.
Veera stood naked before a circle of thirty women.
Today was her first full ritual.
She had written it herself.
It was called: "The Moan of Mud."
Each woman was instructed to lie flat, face down, in the dirt courtyard.To let their breasts press into the earth.To imagine worms crawling inside them.To moan not from pleasure, but from decay.
And they did.
The sound that came was not sexy.
It was broken.
It was rebirth.
Veera stood in the middle, covered in soil.
Screaming.
Coming.
Weeping.
All at once.
Archa entered in silence.
Veera turned.
Their eyes locked.
One bruised.
One blazing.
And in the space between them, Rekha smiled.
Later that night…
In a private room of Mandiram, a group of men sat together.
Ash smeared on their chests.
Eyes closed.
Archa walked in.
Paused.
Spoke clearly:
"Touch yourself if you must.
But this isn't about your dick.
This is about the boy who cried the day they told him boys don't cry.
This is about the father you couldn't please.
This is about the girl you wanted to marry but called a slut behind her back.
This is about moaning without wanting to cum.
This is about moaning because you were never allowed to scream."
The men began to breathe heavy.
Not lust.
Remorse.
And the room filled with sounds the city had never heard.
Moaning.Male.Mortal.Ugly.Beautiful.
Witness was among them.
So was Veera's ex.
So was a priest.
So was a boy who had once tried to rape a girl in college — and had lived with the guilt like a tumor in his chest.
Tonight, they all moaned.
And Rekha's revolution entered their throats.
At 302A, the bed was still warm.
But Rekha's scent had faded.
Archa knelt in front of her photo — lit by ghee lamp.
"You didn't leave, did you?"
The candle flickered.
Somewhere outside, a man moaned.
Soft.
Raspy.
True.
Archa smiled.
"No.
You're just burning us slower now."