Trigger warning Sexual violence

The first

Advik locked the door behind us. I barely took in the surroundings. It had been a splurge. A five-star hotel in Bangalore.

My heart thudded in my chest as if it knew that everything was going to change.

"Our parents got along pretty well," Advik said smiling at me. I swallowed and nodded.

We both knew what we were here for. No small talk was going to change that.

"For a moment there, your dad looked at me like he would take a sword himself and behead me," he laughed.

I laughed nervously, sitting on the bed and clutching the sheets.

"He likes you," I reassured him.

My parents had flown over to Bangalore to meet his family. As our internship was concluding, we wished to formalize our relationship and had sought their blessing.

My father had taken it better than I had expected.

Advik had placed his hand on my knee at one point, and my father had given him the death stare.

But other than that, the dinner had concluded without much of a problem, with both families agreeable to him and me getting married after post-graduation.

I had always thought I would wait until marriage before engaging in sexual activities. But this was Advik. Our parents had agreed to us being together. There was no reason for me to hold back any longer. I was his, and he was mine. There would be no one else for me. We were part of each other like two poles of a magnet.

I licked my lips in nervous tension. His eyes bore into mine, his smile faltering as the heat in his eyes became intense.

"Naina, are you sure..." he began, but I interrupted him. "Yes, Advik, now don't be a bore," I tried to joke, but my voice shook, and my body trembled as he advanced towards me.

He didn't even touch me, but I could feel him all over me. Every hair on my body stood in anticipation.

He sat beside me and cupped my face in his hands. We had kissed several times before, but this felt different, like my body knew what he was going to do to it.

His lips pressed against mine, and I felt his breath on my face. I loved him so much that I felt like my heart would burst. I was the luckiest girl on the planet to have found my soulmate and to have a clear path to him.

His hands trailed down my neck and to my shoulders. My breath hitched; he had never touched my curves before.

I started trembling as he unhooked my bra.

"Are you doing okay, Naina?" he murmured against my lips.

A sound escaped my lips. Had I just moaned? His lips lingered on my neck, sucking my flesh. My grip on him tightened.

"Let's just stop here, princess. We have all the time in the world," he said, his lips brushing against my neck.

"No, Adi, please, I want you to make me yours," I whispered out of stubbornness or need.

"Everything will change," he whispered against my skin, his breath tickling my neck before he moved his face further down.

I didn't know how much more my body could take before my heart would give away.

I felt embarrassed as his lips touched every part of me, but I also felt closer to him than ever before. I wanted this. To be his completely.

"Nia, tell me to stop when it's too much, okay?" he instructed, and I could only nod.

Soon he was inside me. It hurt, I knew it would hurt, but I hadn't known it would hurt this much.

He looked alarmed, and he stilled as I adjusted to him. I focused on his face, his eyes.

"We don't have to go through with it," he said again. I wanted to see it through. But even if we didn't, would it be fair to stop now?

"Don't you want to?" I asked him, afraid of the answer. He looked away. "I don't want things to change between us."

He was still inside me. I should have stopped it. I should have heeded his words. Instead, I reassured him, "I love you, Adi. If we change, it wouldn't be because of this."

I should have stopped it when I saw his eyes glisten. It wasn't a man desperate with need. He was doing this for me, and I hadn't recognized it.

"Adi, please," I begged him, and he kissed my lips passionately.

All thoughts disappeared as I became him and he became me. Our bodies and souls finally uniting until nothing existed but us. As one.

************************************************************
The last

My college roommate was getting married in Hyderabad, and Advik and I had flown there to attend. Shawna had booked rooms for her friends; her girlfriends stayed together in one service apartment, and her guy friends in another.

The day after the wedding, Advik booked a room for us at a luxury hotel. We had been in a long-distance relationship for the last two and a half years. Things had been rocky lately. Although I enjoyed the reunion with the girls, I wanted to sort things out with Advik.

"Nia, princess, you look ravishing," he said after locking the door behind him, his eyes roaming all over me.

"Thanks, Adi," I said, smiling. I loved when he complimented me, but these days, the compliments had dwindled, and the accusations and unsolicited comments had increased.

He advanced towards me.

"Adi," I said softly. "We need to talk."

We had been in a fight just prior to Shawna's wedding. Zayne had tagged me in a post on Instagram. Advik had shouted at me over the phone. "I told you to block him. Why is he tagging you?"

"I don't know. I didn't see the post," I had answered truthfully. "Is it a picture of us or something?"

"Us? What do you mean us? You and him?" he had asked menacingly.

"Adi, stop acting crazy. Zayne is a friend," I had begun.

"A friend who tries to convince you to stay away from me every chance he gets."

"He is just worried," I had retorted.

"Are you just stupid?" he had yelled into the phone. "He wants you for himself."

"You are being ridiculous," I had scolded.

"Nia, you asked me to stop talking to Aicha, and I did. Why can't you just respect me enough to stop talking to Zayne? Have I been like this about any of your other guy friends? He is a perv, Naina," he continued shouting. My breathing quickened, and I was close to tears.

"Okay, I won't talk to him again, I promise," I had said, to shut him up.

His hands cupped my face, and my breath hitched. I couldn't fall into this. We needed to talk about how he had behaved regarding Zayne. It needed to clear things up in person.

"Nia, princess," he said, kissing my ear, "we can always talk on the phone. I can't do this over the phone," he said, undoing the hooks on the blouse of my lehenga.

"Adi, please," I wanted him to stop so we could sort things out, but he wouldn't, and my body wanted his. It had been way too long.

Our lovemaking had evolved over the last two and a half years, with him getting rougher and pushing me to experiment.

It wasn't long before I had surrendered to him completely, and we had fulfilled each other's need to be one again.

I felt strangely calm afterward as I lay in his arms.

"I love you, Nia," Advik whispered.

"I love you too, Adi," I told him. I loved him. Everything about him, the good, the bad, and the ugly. And there had been a fair amount of ugly.

"I'm sorry, I've been a dick, princess. I just can't imagine what I'd do if I lost you," he confessed, looking into my eyes. "You are my life, and when I think of..." his voice trailed off, and his eyes glistened.

"Adi, I'm yours, don't you trust me?" I asked him.

"I do, I just don't trust anyone else," he told me, pulling me close until I was flush against him.

"Forget everyone else. It's just you and me, Adi. It'll always be just you and me," I promised and I firmly believed that.

I slept in his arms, feeling safe and content, the way only he could make me feel.

I was still in his arms when Zayne messaged me the next morning. I picked up my phone and read his text.

"Naina, check your email, our abstract got accepted!" it read.

I immediately opened Gmail on my phone and saw the acceptance letter. I was smiling from ear to ear!

"Omg! Thank you so much, Zayne, I couldn't have done it without you."

It would be my first publication as a first author in a high-impact journal. I was excited. I couldn't wait to tell Adi about it.

"Are you in Mangalore?" he asked via text.

"No, we are in Hyderabad," I responded. I failed to see that Advik was stirring next to me. If I had only paid attention.

"I wish you were here," he typed.

I paused feeling slightly uncomfortable. "Thanks for your help," I started to type, but realized I had already thanked him. I deleted it and typed, "me too."

The next thing I knew, the phone had flown out of my hand, and Advik was atop me.

I remember begging him to get off me. I remember telling him he was hurting me. His hands were on my neck in a chokehold. I couldn't breathe. I pushed him, clawed at him. There was a moment of relief as his hands released my neck and I sucked in a deep breath. And then I felt his hand fly across my cheek followed by searing pain. The same hand that had caressed my cheek so gently last night. I pushed at his chest with all my strength but he grabbed my hands in his and forced them above my head. I remember calling for my mother as he forced himself into me, tearing me up from the inside. My Advik was hurting me. My Advik was doing this to me. Again.

And then I was on the floor. I didn't know if I fell or if he pushed me down. He was shouting at me but I couldn't understand his words. My mind was a chaotic mix of darkness and light.  Everything hurt, but it didn't matter anymore. It was all over and there was nothing left to lose. I felt myself being pulled by the shoulder before being slammed back onto the floor. I barely felt the nightstand as it crashed upon me and objects flew at me. I blinked but my lids stuck together in a crimson haze. Blood. I didn't know where I was bleeding from. Everything hurt. I closed my eyes, curling up on the floor. I heard my name being repeated, fading in intensity.

It was over. He was going to kill me. This was how my life would end.

Did it matter as long as it was his hands that were on me? Did it matter as long as it was his face that I saw last? Did it matter as long as it was his voice that I heard in the end?

.