The Aftan

Note: This is a story very much in line with my other Loving Wives stories. If you're the incel type who pretends to hate those themes, this is your trigger warning. You can leave and read something else. Or you can whine about my choice of category (whiniest ones LOL). Or you can read, masturbate while crying in self-loathing, and then post unimaginative racist comments that I laugh at and delete in a second. Your call. I have fun either way. :)

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I stared at the last message in the text chain with my wife Ritu for the thousandth time in 45 minutes.

- changing into The Kaftan! xoxo

I tried her cell for the 4th time in 10 minutes. I had given her half an hour. She should have sent at least an "ok" by now. But at 45 minutes, I was officially starting to worry. I picked up the keys and ran to my car. I would call my boss and client and cancel the meetings tomorrow while driving home, which was 3 hours away. I was a bundle of nervous energy, a bizarre combination of trepidation and arousal. It had all happened so fast. Or at least it seemed that way.

In reality, it started a while ago. To be precise, eight months ago. The ball was set off by two almost simultaneous career events for us in our mid 30s. My wife was laid off from her longtime job, and had no other offers in hand. And I had been promoted, which meant we were financially okay, but it meant dividing my time between two cities that were three hours away. It also happened to be the time our son Che turned 12 and built such an active extra-curricular life and friends circle for himself, that it felt like we only saw him when he had to sleep or eat, and sometimes not even that. He got that from his mom whose picture albums from childhood sports events and competitions and award functions almost filled a room in her parents' home.

So Ritu, by nature a very hyperactive and type A person, for the first time in her life, found herself with a lot of free time. We had an arranged marriage a couple of years after college when we were both in the same city in similar tech companies. The story of a million 21st century Indian couples unfolded the same was for us. Long hours at work, long commutes, early morning or late night or weekend conference calls, release deadlines, paid leaves that go untaken etc.

In the middle of this, you're trying to get to know the stranger you were married off to just because they are from the right caste, not bad to look at, and have a well paying job. Get to know them physically as well as emotionally. But before you know it, your parents' constant demands for grandchildren start weighing on you. And the conventional "the earlier you have one, the better it is for the mother" wisdom. So by the time the pregnancy happens, even after a year or two of technically being husband and wife, you are no closer personally than a couple in the western world would be on their 7th date.

From the time we got pregnant to the time Che announced that he did not want a party for his 11th birthday, just treat his friends at the mall, the dozen years are a blur. Ritu and I were together in the journey, earning the dough, and turning it into bread and also climbing corporate ladders. But more like business partners from a corporate merger than spouses. Or maybe that's what arranged marriage is. A corporate merger of sorts. The due diligence is very similar.

But enough of social commentary. Let's get to the good part. Cut to about seven months ago.

"Sorry, I better take this." I said as I saw Ritu was calling for a third time in the middle of my meeting, even after I declined the previous two. My colleagues nodded as I swivelled the chair away, crouched down, and answered.

"The fucking kitchen sink is leaking again! I told Shafi there was a bigger problem!"

Ritu's voice was so loud that I am sure the entire room heard it even without the speakerphone.

"I'm in a meeting, honey." I said, with forced patience. She had worked in this industry until a month ago. She should know better. What could I do about the plumbing from 3 hours away?

"Yeah, I know. But I need you to call them right after and yell at them in your jatt voice that..."

That's when the conference room door opened, and another colleague came rushing in.

"Sorry sorry sorry everyone! So sorry! Got stuck in traffic!" she said.

I nodded, as did others. Ritu's voice on the phone, after this interruption, went from angry to chilly.

"Is that Denise?"

"Yeah." I said.

"Can't be a very important meeting if she can waltz in late. Or does she get special consideration because she threw herself at you?"

"Not now, Ritu. I'll yell at Shafi. Bye."

And I hung up, not rising to the bait. The meeting resumed.

When I got out of it, I was like a volcano waiting to burst. The month that Ritu had been laid off had easily been the most acrimonious time of our marriage. She simply was not used to sitting at home. And she did spend a lot of time volunteering with a rescue shelter, she still missed the adrenaline rush of the corporate chase. She was getting annoyed at the smallest of things and yelling way more than ever before.

Part of it had been resurrecting the Denise issue. Which wasn't even that much of an issue. Two years ago at a corporate retreat, Denise and I had shared a drunken kiss on the dance floor, surrounded by our equally drunk colleagues. There might have been some vigorous groping too. It was a moment of weakness for me. As a good looking and in-shape guy, I am used to attention from Indian female colleagues. I had never let it go beyond casual flirting, because honestly, who had the time for an affair? I barely got time to sleep with my wife, and she was a knockout still.

Denise though was white, recently transferred from the company's Sweden office. A tall shapely friendly Sacndinavian beauty a decade younger caressing my tricep and tucking her hair behind her ears, and laughing too hard at my dad jokes...that was a whole other temptation. I only succumbed to it for a minute at that party, very drunk. And even then, I pulled away after that minute, rebuffed any further advances. She slipped a room key into my pocket. It stayed in my pocket.

My mistake was not telling Ritu about it right away. Like right right away. I woke up to an angry call at 8 AM, with a horrible hangover.

"You fucked Denise?" icy chill.

"What? No! Who the fuck..."

It was pointless asking who told her. There had been a few dozen people at that party, many of whom knew Ritu from our common industry. I could think of four women instantly who might have tattled to her.

"Ritu, listen to me. I did not have sex with Denise. All that happened was a drunken kiss in a moment of weakness. And I pulled away. And that was it. It meant nothing."

"She did not give you her room key?"

"She did. I did not use it. I swear, honey. Just an impulsive drunk kiss. Meant nothing."

"So you will get away with anything if you say it meant nothing?"

You get this gist. It was a fight that lasted a few weeks. Only an apology from Denise along with the sworn promise that nothing happened nor will ever happen finally put the issue to bed two years ago. And we moved on. Or so I had thought.

Now it seemed like what bothered Ritu more than my being away most of the month was that Denise was on the same project. Or maybe that Denise was still gainfully employed (and had risen faster than usual) while she was twiddling her thumbs at home. She started making snide Denise comments again. That added to my own stress and annoyance.

So when I called Shafi, our gated community's maintenance in-charge, I took it all out on him.

"Shafi! You motherfucker...does my wife have nothing better to do than deal with sinks every other day? You are fucking ruining my whole..."

Again, you get the gist. I really let him have the full fury of my jatt rage. He didn't argue back, but did not sound pleased. And later, when I cooled down, I felt bad about it. It wasn't Shafi's fault. It was the damn builder's fault. Another typical Indian white collar thing we had done was buy as fancy and as expensive a house as our salaries could permit. A high end gated community with its own dedicated staff for everything. It worked exactly as advertised for about 5 years.

Then the mediocre quality of the builder's work started revealing itself. Maintenance folks started getting swamped with requests as something or the other kept breaking down. Shafi, in his early 20s, was the "boss" of a 3 person team constantly trouble-shooting some 40 houses which kept having new breakdowns almost everyday. The quality of their work and response rates were bound to suffer.

After making a mental note to call up Shafi after work and apologize, I got back to work. A lot of work. In the middle of that, I got a text from Ritu.

- Sink ok now. Thanks. Sorry for yelling. I was a little drunk. :(

I had no idea if my wife was making a sarcastic Denise reference or if she was serious about being drunk at 3 PM. Either was possible. Being home alone for lunch everyday, with me at work at Che at school, she had started having a glass of wine or two just to help her calm down. Which I didn't think much of. I often had a glass of wine with business lunches. But what I noticed on my last visit home was that the wine shelf was a lot emptier than just a drink or two per day would indicate. I did not bring it up. But it did seem like Ritu had started to drink more than usual to cope with her situation.

"Sorry I was such a bitch." she guiltily grinned that night when I videocalled her from my service apartment.

"It's okay honey, I understand."

"You must have really let Shafi have it. He came way quicker than I expected. Usually they take at least 24 hours."

"Yeah, I should apologize."

"No need to apologize and all. It's his job. Besides he was kind of rude and also a little creepy, though he did fix the sink."

"What? Creepy?"

"Little creepy, nothing drastic. For a little while I was wearing just my robe and my body was half wet and I caught him leering at me."

"You were wearing just your robe and your...what???"

"Hehe." she giggled. "After yelling at you, I got in a bubble bath with a bottle of wine..."

Notice she said bottle not glass. She continued,

"...bottle of wine and candles and I was nicely buzzed with the doorbell rang. I thought it was one of the bath salts I had ordered, so just threw on a robe and ran to the door. But it was Shafi, with his tool trolley. Said he was here at your orders. Looked a bit sulky, not his usual smiling self."

I imagined how my wife's voluptuous body, right out of a bath, must have looked with just a robe wrapped around it. It seemed like the start of a million porn videos. The handyman and the frustrated housewife just out of a bath.

"Anyway, while he went to the kitchen, I was walking to the bedroom to dry up and get dressed. When I noticed his reflection in the display shelf on my way, I saw he was just staring at me."

"At your butt probably."

"Shut up!"

"What? It is not news to you that men admire your butt all the time. You put it in a damp robe and of course a guy is going to stare, especially if he thinks you are facing away from him."

"Yeah. Well, anyway, I got dressed and came out. And watched his work and told him all my theories and suggestions..."

Ritu's analytical decision making mental energy, unused without a job, had found its outlet in plumbing research. She had been reading a lot of forums and watching videos since these troubles started with the kitchen recently. And given her outspoken and opinionated nature, she did not feel shy sharing her thoughts with the maintenance staff, especially Shafi. From what I heard, the sexist pigs were not thrilled by a woman backseat driving their work, although men do it all the time.

"He was half listening and, well, subtly checking me out still!"

"What were you wearing?"

"Jeans, simple t-shirt. Nothing skimpy. And again, nothing blatant or past the line. But coming close to the line. Like looking away from my face to my chest for a noticeable split second. Things like that."

"Hope that didn't add to your stress."

"Hehe, honestly, it relieved it. Maybe it was the tipsiness from the wine. The fact that I had spent half a minute with him naked under my robe. Also, well, he isn't someone a woman would kick out of bed. Hehehe."

I don't know about the afternoon, but Ritu was definitely drunk that night. I could not imagine her making such a comment off-hand. It was so out of character from her Type A always in charge almost headmistress-like personality that I felt a little turned on.

"Maybe you should cash in your free pass on him then!" I said, impulsively.

There was a short pause and then she said,

"Yeah, you'd like that wouldn't you? Use it up on some random plumber fellow. No, I am going to save it up for some hunky billionaire VC to fund my start-up. Maybe on his yacht."

This was one of those things that neither of us were sure about it being a joke or a taunt or something even remotely serious. In the aftermath of Denisegate, this following conversation had happened two years ago.

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"You keep saying it meant nothing, like it's okay. What if I fuck a guy and say it meant nothing?"

I was so frustrated with the fights by then that I blurted out,

"Fine! Do it! Call it a free pass. If that is what it takes, do it."

She glared at me and laughed sarcastically.

"Yeah, right, as if your male ego could handle me even kissing a guy."

"I am serious, Ritu. I messed up with the kiss. I have said all I can say. I have apologized. Multiple times. If you sleeping with someone will get you over this, go for it!"

Ritu had the exact same look as she did during poker nights with friends when she went all in on a bluff and someone called.

"Yeah, well, it's the least you can do!" she sulked. The argument continued on other fronts.

----

After that, occasionally, Ritu would bring up the free pass in a jocular way. Like if a good looking guy walked by at the mall, she would be like, umm, free pass material. As time went by, it became more of a joke. I started using it too. This was one such time. And she seemed to be in a good mood. So I continued.

"Hey, if that's the only thing stopping you, I will give you two free passes. Use this on Shafi."

"No thank you. Anyway, Che had some new from his tennis coach that he wanted to share. So I will take the laptop to his room."

"Okay". And I started catching up on my son's exploits.

A couple of months went by. Ritu's outbursts grew less frequent, but I could see she was still having a hard time coping with being unemployed. To make matters worse, she was even "let go" from the shelter where she had been volunteering after a fight with the woman in charge. I could sense her slipping when I was home. She was trying her best to be upbeat, but this languid housewife was not the woman I had married.

I also started wondering about how much she was drinking when alone. Much of it had to be during the daytime, because when we did our nightly video calls, she was mostly sober, and never more than a little buzzed, which I too was at the end of a workday. But clearly the bottles were going somewhere. And then levels of whiskey, vodka, gin bottles started dropping way faster than unusual. I considered the possibility that maybe my 12 year old son was sneaking some stuff. But when newer bottles started replacing them without my buying, it was clearly Ritu. That worried me.

So I started calling more and more often during the workday. I even told my boss, who knew Ritu well, that we were having troubles with the long distance adjustment, so I needed to take breaks in between, even if it meant staying back at the office longer. These calls helped somewhat with her mood, but not with my worries about her drinking. She had gone from just sipping a small glass of wine to downing tall drinks of scotch during our half hour calls.

I still did not bring it up. Although we were like business partners in a merger in many ways, I still knew my wife well enough to know that she was not an alcoholic. Once she got a job, this would end. It was just a phase. Let her enjoy her drink for now, I thought.

It was during one such drunken daytime video chat that the next chapter of this saga occured. I was a little tipsy too, because I had returned from lunch with clients visiting from Texas and those people love their lunch cocktails.

"You are so hot! And looking particularly hot right now!" I said. Because, she actually did not, and that's what a husband tries to do when he is making his wife feel better. She was in a t-shirt she had been wearing for 3 days straight. And wrinkled pyjamas. She looked like a mess.

"Thank you honey, I miss you!" she took a sip of scotch at 2:30 pm and said. "We should go back to Seychelles when you get time."

After our honeymoon, the only couples vacation we had managed to take was a week at the island resort a couple of years ago. It was also meant to be a reboot vacation from Denise-gate.

"You still have The Kaftan?" I smiled wryly.

"Of course! Although I can tell it's going to fall apart soon."

Which brings us to another flashback. During that trip, Ritu had bought a kaftan from a beach shack to wear over her swimsuit. And I just totally fell in love with how hot she looked in it. It was short, a little above mid-thigh. It was just semi transparent enough to give a hint of the curves underneath, and even let you guess the color of the swimsuit. But did not give away the farm. And it hugged her ample curves beautifully. So I insisted that she wear that cheap flimsy thing as much as possible in Seychelles, indoors and outdoors. And we had more quality sex in that week than we did in the previous year.

Since then, in some intimate moments, I had my wife reprise those memories by throwing on the kaftan. I thought this was one such moment, although we have never used it in video chat. And clearly my wife thought the same. Because she skipped away from the screen, and then reappeared wearing the kaftan instead of those slobby Kevin Smith clothes.

"That's what I am talking about! Now, I am going to..."

That's when I heard the doorbell from the laptop.

"Just a sec! Probably a package." Ritu said and disappeared from the screen again. I could hear some faint voices from the living room.

She reappeared a minute later with a strange look on her face. Before I could ask, she said,

"It's Shafi. He needs to check some things in our bathroom, because the Agarwal's bathroom below us is leaking." she took her seat in front of the laptop and took another sip of scotch.

I wondered if Shafi had smelt nooze on her breath in the middle of the afternoon. While she was in this very sexy kaftan.

"Did he check you out again?" I asked.

"Obviously! I'm sure he now thinks I just roam around the house undressed. The robe last time and now this. I need to stop assuming that every doorbell is a flipkart delivery."

"Haha. Did he say anything?" it was an idle thought.

"Nothing inappropriate, but his eyes were roving a lot more. But that's just what he does now." she shrugged. And then a wry smile spread across her face.

"Ritu!" I said in a playful tone. "What do you mean by that?"

"It's...I don't know...nothing really. After that time with the robe, whenever I pass him around the complex, I think I sense a kind of...desire...in his eyes."

"All men desire you, honey."

"No, this is different. This seems more personal. Not a random appreciative glance."

"So he has the hots for you. Who doesn't?"

"You don't get it. Forget it!" she sighed in annoyance. "Anyway, I should change into regular clothes while...YES??"

She stopped mid-sentence and then disappeared from the room again. I had heard Shafi's voice in the background. I assumed he was leaving so she would be back soon. She did.