Word count: 2,508 words.

When twelve-year-old Roshani Sharma was sexually assaulted she told only one person about it. The person she trusted most in the whole wide world. A person she had faith in, a person who knew how to pull right out of wrong like a magician extracts rabbits from his hat — her mother.

Poor Roshani didn't even know what sex was, let alone sexual assault. She just knew what her dear Uncle Magan had done to her had felt not right. It had made her uncomfortable, how he had put his large, thick-fingered hand on her thigh. How he had started caressing it so casually, so indecently, like she were made of velvet.

Roshani had sat there like a good little swan, her neck craned in hopes that someone would enter the room and engage Uncle Magan in a conversation about politics or engines, and his hand would leave her lap, and everything would be all right again.

No one came.

Roshani tried to get up and get away, but one of Uncle's thick arms created a barricade across her chest. Such that the tip of her breasts, far from the woman's breasts she would grow into, were pressed against his arm.

Surely, little Roshani thought, Uncle can hear my heart? It was beating so loudly she was afraid it would burst. Surely, thought she, surely he can see how red I am. Surely he realizes how frightened I feel.

She told her neck to force her head to turn. It did so, and she saw his face. His face which was split neatly by a wide unforgettable grin, revealing teeth like coffee-stained piano keys.

Surely, she thought, surely he'll want tea. I should ask him if he wants tea after such long travels.

His hand, the one on her thigh, was making its own travels. Creeping across her skin like a bulldozer towards what rested between her legs.

I shall fetch him tea, yes, I shall, Roshani thought. *Atithi devo bhava. Mother would be proud.

[*Guest is the equivalent of God. A household Indian saying.]

His hand reached something, touched something.

Reflexively worked Roshani's feet, shoved her upright, but Uncle's arm-barricade was strong. It threw her back into her place even as his grin widened, showing more teeth. Shaper teeth. Fangs, almost.

Surely, surely he wants . . . surely he wants . . . surely HE WANTS MY BLOOD ONCE MY HEART BURSTS OH GOD NO HE'S A DEMON . . . !

Roshani made a noise humans very rarely make. The noise was like a shout that was just shy of being a scream, and the scream met traffic along the road mapping her throat and turned into a strange high-pitched squeal.

She peeled Uncle Magan's hand off from where he had positioned them uninvited with all her might. Then she ducked under the barricade of his arm and fled the room, suddenly seeing the world through a blurry lens of tears.

Demon demon demon there's a demon in our house that's not Uncle Magan that's a demon demon demon in our house—

Eyes stinging, she stormed into the kitchen where she expected her mother to be, preparing food for their demon-infested guest. And indeed Mother was there, a tray full of teacups in her hand. Just the sight of her made Roshani feel like she was safe. Like things were all right again.

The converse of this was not true. For Mother's smile vanished as soon as she saw her daughter looking like an empty sack.

Mother handed the tray over to a maid, who skipped away out of the kitchen. Mother's eyes never left Roshani's face. Roshani's didn't leave Mother's; she knew Mother would get it, Mother always did, Mother would pull the demon out of Uncle Magan by its bootstraps, and things would be all right-er.

"What happened?" Mother asked.

Roshani fumbled for words, found they'd abandoned her.

Mother bent down to one knee, leveling her face with Roshani's face.

"Wipe your tears, Roshani," Mother said. "I don't want to see my daughter cry. Wipe your tears, and tell me what happened."

So Roshani wiped her tears and requested words to come back to her. They refused.

"Are you hurt?"

Roshani didn't know how to answer this question. She was hurt. Whether the hurt was physical or not she did not feel qualified to say.

"I will not ask again," Mother said sternly.

Roshani gulped a breath and said, "Uncle Magan . . . "

"He hurt you?"

It didn't seem, to little Roshani, like she was hurt. Why would Uncle Magan want to inflict harm upon his niece? So she shook her head.

"What did he do? Not bring you a present? I did not raise such a petty girl."

Why wasn't she understanding?! She always understood, she always did! Words were a formality, a luxury; Mother and daughter communicated mainly through eyes.

"He . . . he touched me," Roshani finally blurted out.

Mother did not recoil. But she did stretch herself to full height again, now looking down at Roshani. "Where did he touch you?" she asked, in a small voice.

Once again Roshani misplaced her gift of speech somewhere in a dungeon where the walls echoed DEMON DEMON DEMON . . .

"Answer me, honey," said Mother, in an even fainter voice. "Where?"

Roshani looked down at her small feet. Had she the power of speech, she would still not be able to bring herself to say it.

But it appeared this time Mother understood fully. She was silent for a few seconds, then the silence stretched like a rubber to its breaking point and Mother nodded, solemnly, as if to herself.

Went down on her knee again. Put her hands behind Roshani's neck, smashing her daughter's forehead against hers. Whispered Mother: "Don't ever tell anyone what happened."

And that was it.

In Roshani's mind her mother was a superhero. She was supposed to punch the bad guys and — DEMON, DEMON, DEMON —  yes, and demons. She was supposed to, supposed to, to, to—

To what? spoke a harsh voice inside Roshani's head. To beat Uncle Magan into a pulp? To send his piano-key teeth flying out his jaw? Mother was supposed to do what, you naive little thing? The demon got away. It made Uncle Magan do a bad thing and it got away. It got away and it took a piece of your childhood away with it; and it replaced that piece with an ordinate amount of fear, and trauma, and nightmares, and guilt — GUILT of all things, though you did nothing wrong and you know it but by God above you'll feel like a hollow shell in the years to come; you'll feel a drip of that guilt, and fear, and trepidation, and anxiety, fall into your hollowness every time you feel anything towards anyone. Romance for you is dead, you broken little thing. Romance is dead, and justice is dead, and your heroes are dead — let alone superheroes with their swirling capes and rigid rules — SO MUCH FOR YOU IS DEAD, ROSHANI! YOU SHOULD KNOW THAT! YOU MUST KNOW THAT! YOU ABSOLUTELY MUST! YOU'RE ONLY TWELVE AND THERE'S A LOT TO COME YOUR WAY BUT YOU'LL ONLY LIVE A HALF LIFE NOW! YOU CRIPPLE! YOU POOR THING! THE DEMON GOT AWAY!

The harsh voice was only half-right. Roshani grew up into a wonderful, charming woman with lots of wonderful, charming friends. She even snagged herself some romance in her college life (nothing intimate conspired). She forgot all about the incident — as, it would appear, did Mother — as life passed her by like a bullet train. And all of a sudden she was not twelve but twenty-four, and it was time to get married.

Hers was an arranged marriage with a well-to-do gentleman called Vinayak. Vinayak was educated. Vinayak ran his father's business of cosmetics. Granted, Vinayak was a tad shorter than the hero of her dreams, but at least he was real. Flesh and bone, not dream and drouse.

Vinayak was a nice guy. And before she had time to properly admire his dimples, Vinayak became her husband.

A typical marriage is the soulbinding of two persons. A typical Indian marriage, however, is the binding of two families together by a sturdy chain the key of which is chucked off Mount Kailash.

The wedding was a lavish affair. Excessively, unnecessarily bombastic. Neither the Sharmas nor the Makhijas spared an expense.

For a wedding of such scale the guestlist had to be equally impressive, and indeed it was. Anyone who was anyone to anyone who was anyone to the Sharmas or the Makhijas was sent an invite. And anyone who was anyone to anyone who was anyone to the Sharmas or the Makhijas sent back an affirmative RSVP.

The bride and groom read their vows. Circled an agnikund seven times. Smiled their politest smiles at anybody and everybody who came up to greet them after. Uncles and aunties and siblings and cousins and friends; even wedding crashers.

Roshani did all the smiling like the dutiful wife that she was now to be. She felt happy. Happy didn't cover a third of it! She was ecstatic, dammit! She was wearing a lehenga which looked like liquid silver and herself she looked like a fairy queen and she was standing next to her husband who would for all her life, and all her lives to follow, take care of her, and love her, and protect her —

But happiness, be it of whatever magnitude, is easily overshadowed by trauma.

When Uncle Magan, whom Roshani had fortitudiously not seen since the incident, came up to congratulate her on having bagged such a deal with a handsome lad like Vinayak — well, Roshani felt no longer like there was a floor beneath her feet and a roof above. No longer did she feel beautiful. Felt she not like a woman married but a child assaulted, a vulnerable child.

Uncle Magan had changed vastly in looks. He walked with a stoop now, and his hair — what of it remained — was salted white as snow. But his smile was the same.

The same disgusting, evil smile he had flashed at her when he was touching her inappropriately. And the same coffee-stained, piano-key teeth were unabashedly on display.

They transported her back in time to when she had confided something in Mother, and Mother had done nothing because nothing could have been done.

Roshani's eyes searched for Mother among the plethora of joyful faces now. There. In a fine garb of her own, chatting away with Vinayak's father, her father-in-law.

Then she looked back at that bastard Magan with all the revulsion she could muster in her eyes.

That smile. That damned smile.

Roshani's name's literal translation was Light.

But that smile represented, to her, a feat of darkness having enveloped light.

He dared not touch her now. She hardly thought he remembered what he had done. But that smile was enough to make Roshani feel like she had been raped right in front of her husband.

Uncle Magan leaned over and hissed an evidently funny joke into Vinayak's ear. They shared a laugh, her husband and her assaulter.

And although Roshani knew this was folly, she felt in that moment that she hated Vinayak as well. She hated Mother, too, and herself. She hated everyone.

That night Vinayak and Roshani sat dignified and stately as royalty at the edge of their bed. The bed they would share for quite some time, and make happy memories and healthy babies on, if all went well.

Roshani was a maiden, a virgin. She did not know if Vinayak was one as well; she hadn't the courage to ask. It wasn't hard to imagine he had slept with some other girl. Wasn't much harder to imagine him smiling like Uncle Magan at poor young creatures, putting his hand in their laps, blowing away their naivety . . .

When Vinayak leaned in for a peck on her neck, Roshani did not recoil. But she did stand up and pull herself to her full height, her breathing hard and shallow, her thoughts polluted by a black memory.

"Oh," remarked Vinayak, as he nearly fell on his face on the bed mid-peck. "You tired?"

Roshani simply nodded.

They went to sleep.

Next night Vinayak made a move again. She let him. Or tried to. They got so far as him removing her nightgown, and her removing his — but once again her breathing grew ragged, her heart wild, her thoughts patched by the sinewy threads of corruption. And they could go no further.

They tried thusly for seven nights. Never exchanging a word. Just trying with a silent, fierce determination. Failing every time. Surely, thought Roshani, surely I can do this. I want to do this. Why must my past govern my present?

One night finally Vinayak asked her, not unkindly, "What's the problem?"

And just like that, she told him. He was the first person she was confiding in since Mother all those years back, and yet the words seeped out of her like blood from an open artery.

Vinayak listened patiently. Compassionately. At the end he said, "Magan? That guy with the stoop?"

Roshani nodded.

"Okay," said Vinayak, adding a soft "I'm sorry."

They went to sleep.

Next morning Vinayak went to work as was the routine. When he returned from work he had a black eye.

Roshani's breath caught in her chest when she saw it, an ugly thing born of a punch delivered full-tilt at one's face.

"Who hit you?" she demanded of her shorter-than-average, meeker-than-average husband.

He tried to wink at her but did it with the wrong eye and winced. He took her palm in his and placed something in it.

A tooth like a snake's fang, like a stained chipped key of a piano.

And it struck her. But surely, she thought, surely he didn't . . .

She couldn't keep herself from smirking as she got him some ice for his black eye.

That night they sat awkward and stiff as teenagers at the edge of their bed. The bed they would share for quite some time, and make happy memories and healthy babies on, if all went well.

Roshani leaned in to peck him on the neck, but he stopped her. "Not tonight," said Vinayak. "Tomorrow, perhaps, if you sleep through the night without once waking up. I'll keep an eye on you."

A pause, which Roshani utilized to gape at her man and his dimples in astonishment and admiration.

"Get it?" he elaborated.  "An eye. Because I only have the one for now. Never mind."

Roshani laughed. She laughed the hardest she had laughed since she was a child. He laughed with her, and she wished she knew how to trap the music of their combined laughter somewhere she could hear it and relive this moment over and again.

They went to sleep, together.

For Roshani Makhija romance was not yet dead.

I was attempting (poorly) to solve some physics numericals late at night yesterday -- July 14th, 2021 -- when this story appeared fully formed in my head. This never happens. Not to me. But yesterday it did: I clearly saw Roshani, I felt for Roshani, and I wanted to tell Roshani's story to somebody, anybody, if only my Word document.

An hour later I had this whole thing down and my fingers were aching. I didn't have a structure in mind, I didn't have anything in mind, but the story knew how it wanted to come out. As Stephen King put it: 'Good writing is a delight to the reader and a mystery to the writer.'

I proofread this once, by which I mean I ran a lazy eye over it, and decided this is something I want to put on Wattpad. There is way too much tell and not enough show in this story, and a very weak use of adverbs. But, for all that, I think it reads nicely.

I would really appreciate it if I could get your absolute honest thoughts on this story.

Thanks for reading! Stay healthy! (◕ᴗ◕✿)