The Monsoon and the Memory

July 12

A soft, percussive thud from down the street—the transformer giving up its ghost to the humidity—and suddenly, my world shrank to the four walls of my room, the only light a sickly grey bleed from the monsoon sky. The fan’s lazy whir stuttered and died, and in the silence it left behind, the rain took centre stage. It wasn't the gentle pitter-patter of romantic films; this was a full-throated roar on the terracotta tiles, a relentless, drenching downpour that turned the world outside my window into a watercolour painting left in the rain. Mumbai was drowning, and I was marooned in my third-floor apartment.

The air thickened instantly. It’s a specific kind of heat, a monsoon heat. It clings to your skin, a second, wetter skin. My thin cotton kurta was already sticking to the small of my back, a damp patch I could feel every time I shifted on the bed. The scent of wet earth—petrichor—rose from the courtyard below, a primal, intoxicating smell that always, always, does something to me. It unravels a knot deep in my belly, something ancient and restless.

And with the stillness, the forced inertia of the power cut, the heat found a new centre. It pooled, low and insistent, between my legs. A dull, familiar ache. A thrumming that started as a background noise and was quickly becoming the only song in the room.

This is how it always begins. Not with a decision, but with a noticing. A shift in the atmosphere, both outside and within.

I let my head fall back against the pillows, the cotton cool for a fleeting second before it, too, warmed to my skin. I closed my eyes. The sound of the rain became a curtain, shutting out the world, making this space, my bed, a secret universe. My right hand drifted down, my fingertips tracing idle, lazy circles over the thin fabric of my salwar. Just pressure. A hint. A promise.

My imagination is my most potent lover. It never fumbles, never rushes, never misunderstands the assignment. Tonight, it didn’t have to work very hard. It had a recent memory to play with, to dissect and embellish. A man from the coffee shop. No, not a man. A story. A collection of sensory details my mind had greedily hoarded.

I’d seen him three times now. He was new to the neighbourhood, I think. He’d always be there, tucked into a corner, a book in one hand, a ceramic cup in the other. He wasn’t classically handsome in that sharp, Bollywood way. His beauty was in his stillness. He had the kind of shoulders that looked like they could carry a weight, broad and solid under a simple, grey linen shirt. His hands… god, his hands. Long fingers, capable-looking, with a faint tracery of veins on the back. I’d watched them turn a page, slow and deliberate, and I’d felt a ridiculous, sharp twist of envy for that paper.

In my mind, now, in the dark of my room, he wasn’t in the coffee shop. He was here.

The fantasy didn’t start with a kiss. It started with a sound.

The soft creak of my bedroom door. I wouldn’t open my eyes. I’d just listen. The whisper of wet jeans against the floor—him taking off his shoes, soaked from the rain. The quiet, measured steps coming closer. I could smell him then, cutting through the petrichor. The scent of rain on skin, and underneath it, something warm, clean. Soap and something uniquely male.

He’d stop by the bed. I could feel his gaze on me, a physical weight. My breathing would hitch, just a little. I’d keep my eyes closed, playing asleep, playing innocent, but my body would betray me. My nipples, tight and sensitive against my kurta, would give me away.

“I saw you watching me,” his voice would be low, a rumble that vibrated in the space between us. Not an accusation. A statement of fact. A shared secret.

My fingers pressed harder against myself, a slow, circling rhythm through the cotton. The fabric was a frustrating barrier. In my fantasy, his hand replaces mine. Not on my sex, not yet. His fingers, those long, writer’s fingers, brush a stray strand of hair from my forehead. The touch is electric. A jolt straight down my spine, settling right in that pulsing heat.

He traces the line of my jaw, down the column of my throat. I can feel the callus on his thumb, rough against my frantic pulse. My lips part. A silent invitation.

“Open your eyes,” he says.

And I do.

In the dim light, his eyes are dark, unreadable pools. He’s looking at me like I’m the only story he ever wants to read. He lowers himself, one knee sinking into the mattress beside my hip, the other foot still on the floor. The bed dips with his weight. A real, tangible presence. He cages me in, his arms on either side of my head, but he doesn’t touch me anywhere else. The anticipation is a live wire.

My own hands are under my salwar now. The fantasy is so vivid I can almost forget I’m alone. Almost. The reality is the slick heat of my own fingers, the soft, wet sound they make as I circle my clit. It’s a small, shameful sound, or it would be, if I allowed shame a place in this room. I don’t. I lean into it. This is my truth. This is my hunger.

In my head, he’s finally kissing me. But it’s not a frantic, desperate kiss. It’s slow. Devouring. His mouth is soft but insistent, and he tastes of the coffee he was drinking, bitter and dark. One of his hands slides from my throat, over the swell of my breast. His thumb finds my nipple through the cotton and presses down, a perfect, sharp point of pleasure-pain. I arch into his touch, a soft moan escaping into his mouth.

He breaks the kiss, his breath warm against my wet lips. He looks down at where his hand is cupping my breast. “So responsive,” he murmurs, and the approval in his voice makes me clench inside.

His hand moves down, over my stomach, a flat, hot weight. He doesn’t rush. He takes his time, learning the landscape of my body. My own fingers mirror the journey in reality, sliding lower, parting my folds. I’m so wet. The evidence of my desire is a slick, hot truth on my skin.

He hooks his fingers into the waistband of my salwar. “Lift your hips,” he commands, his voice husky.

And I do. In my mind, and in my bed, I lift my hips, pushing the fabric down my legs, kicking it off. The cool air hits my naked skin, a shocking contrast to the heat blooming inside me. He looks his fill, his gaze a physical caress. I feel exposed, utterly vulnerable, and more turned on than I’ve ever been.

“You’re so beautiful,” he says, and it doesn’t sound like a line. It sounds like a prayer.

He lowers his head. Not to my core, but to the inside of my thigh. His lips are soft, his tongue a hot, wet stripe against the sensitive skin. I jerk, a gasp tearing from my throat. He’s marking me. Claiming me. He moves inward, with agonising slowness, his stubble a delicious friction. My legs fall open, a silent, desperate plea.

The fantasy and reality merge into a single, overwhelming sensation. The rain is a roar in my ears. The smell of the storm is in my lungs. And the feeling… the feeling of his mouth finally, finally on me is so real I cry out.

His tongue is a revelation. It’s not a frantic licking; it’s an exploration. A slow, circling worship of my clit, then a languid, downward stroke that parts me, tasting me. He groans, and the vibration travels through my entire body, setting every nerve ending on fire. His hands are on my hips, holding me down, keeping me from bucking right off the bed.

“You taste like rain,” he whispers against my skin, his breath hot.

That does it. The coil of pleasure in my belly tightens to a breaking point. My back arches off the bed. My hands fist in the sheets. A string of broken, meaningless words fall from my lips—his name, a curse, a plea. I’m falling, falling apart, the orgasm crashing over me in a series of violent, exquisite waves. It’s not a quiet, polite release. It’s a storm. It’s the monsoon breaking inside me.

For a long moment, there is nothing but the aftershock, the frantic beating of my heart, and the sound of the rain.

Then, the slow return to myself.

The fantasy dissolves like smoke. The man from the coffee shop is gone. It’s just me again, in my damp room, my body slick with sweat, my fingers still tingling. The heat between my legs is now a warm, satisfied hum.

I lie there, boneless, listening to the rain begin to soften. The frantic roar settles into a steady, soothing patter. The power is still out. The world is still drowned. But I feel… quiet. Centred. Real.

This is my secret. Not the masturbation—that’s just biology, a need met. The secret is the life I can build inside my own head. The stories I can tell myself. The way I can take a glance, a scent, a sound, and weave it into a rope strong enough to pull me over the edge of pleasure.

I am a writer. And this, this late-afternoon ritual in the monsoon dark, is where I write my most authentic, most visceral stories. They are for me alone. They are maps of my own desire, drawn with the memory of a touch that never was, and the very real, very wet truth of my own hand.

And it’s enough. For now, it is more than enough.