Meeting My Ex At A Party

The Balcony

October 28th

I saw him across a sea of familiar-unfamiliar faces, and for a second, the last five years didn't just vanish; they were violently erased. The air, thick with the smell of tandoori kebabs, spilled whiskey, and too much perfume, went thin. The bass of the bhangra track thumping from the speakers inside seemed to sync with a sudden, hard pulse in my throat.

Aman.

He was leaning against the doorframe to the kitchen, a bottle of Kingfisher dangling from his fingers, saying something to Rohan that made him throw his head back and laugh. He looked… older. Not in a bad way. The boyish softness in his cheeks had been planed away, leaving sharper angles, a stronger jaw shadowed with stubble. He'd filled out. The simple black kurta he wore stretched across his shoulders in a way that made my fingertips remember their exact weight.

My husband, Raj, was deep in a political debate with someone's uncle on my left, his hand a warm, possessive weight on the small of my back. A weight that suddenly felt like a brand. I shifted, and his hand dropped as he gestured with his drink.

Five years. I'd heard, of course. Through the intricate, vine-like gossip network of our Punjabi circle, I'd heard he'd moved to Delhi, started some kind of tech consultancy. That he was doing well. I'd pictured it, sometimes. Him in a sleek office, him with another girl. I'd hoped for it, even. A strange, benevolent hope for an ex-lover. It was easier than the alternative.

And now, seeing him in the flesh, that hope felt real. I was glad. Truly. A part of me, the 20-year-old who had loved him with a frantic, desperate hunger, uncurled inside my chest and sighed. He's okay.

He looked up then, his gaze scanning the room and landing on me as if he'd known I was there all along. His smile, the one that had always been a little lopsided, a little too knowing, didn't falter. It just… deepened. He gave a slow, simple nod of acknowledgement. I lifted my wine glass in a tiny, shaky salute.

This is what being a grown-up is, right? You see the boy who wrecked you and put you back together, the boy whose body you knew better than your own, and you are civil. You are happy for him.

I excused myself from Raj, murmuring something about the heat, and made my way towards the balcony, needing the cold night air on my skin. The French windows were open, the thick, embroidered curtains pulled back. I stepped out, leaning my hands on the cool, rough stone of the railing. The party sounds muted instantly, replaced by the distant, lonely bark of a dog and the rustle of the neem trees lining the driveway. The air in Patiala in late October has a specific bite to it - crisp, smog-tinged, carrying the faint, sweet smell of dying leaves and woodsmoke from some nearby farm.

I heard his footsteps before I saw him. A soft, deliberate tread on the terracotta tiles.

"Hey, Simran."

His voice. God, his voice. It was the same, but richer. It had a gravelly undertone now that hadn't been there before. It did things to me, low in my belly. Things that were entirely inappropriate for a married woman whose husband was thirty feet away.

I turned, leaning my hip against the railing. "Hey, Aman. Long time."

"Too long." He came to stand beside me, not too close, but close enough that I could smell him. Not his cologne, but him. That clean, soapy scent with a hint of something warm and uniquely male underneath. It was a scent that bypassed all rational thought and went straight to my lizard brain.

"You look good," I said, and it was the truth. The kind of good that makes your mouth water a little.

"You too," he said, his eyes doing a slow, thorough sweep of me. I was in a deep emerald green saree. I knew it looked good on me. I'd chosen it for that reason. But under his gaze, it felt like too much fabric and yet not nearly enough. His eyes weren't just looking; they were remembering. "Married life agrees with you, I see."

There it was. The word, hanging between us like a shard of ice. Married.

I gave a small, tight smile. "It does. It's… good. Comfortable." The word felt like ash in my mouth.

He just nodded, taking a sip of his beer. We stood in a silence that wasn't awkward. It was heavy. Loaded with five years of unsaid things, of memories that were currently playing a highlight reel in the space between us.

"I heard about your company," I said, grasping for safe ground. "Congratulations. It's amazing, what you've built."

"Thanks. It's… a lot of work. But it's mine, you know?" He looked out at the dark garden. "And you? Still painting?"

A sharp, painful twinge in my chest. I hadn't picked up a brush in over a year. "Here and there. Not so much anymore."

"That's a shame. You were brilliant."

Were. The past tense of it stung. He was the one who'd bought me my first set of proper oils. He'd sit for hours in my cramped little hostel room, reading a book while I painted, the smell of turpentine and his skin mingling into the most intoxicating perfume. He never complained, not even when I got paint on his clothes.

We fell into it then, the easy back-and-forth. Talking about old friends, about Rohan's terrible taste in music, about how ludicrously expensive Amritsar had become. It was safe. It was the script we were supposed to follow. Two old friends catching up.

And then, the script tore.

He asked, "So, is he good to you? Raj?"

The question was so direct, so unvarnished, it stole the air from my lungs. My carefully constructed facade of the happy, settled wife wobbled. I looked down at my wine glass, at the deep red liquid swirling inside.

"He's a good man," I said, the rehearsed line sounding hollow even to my own ears. "He provides. He's responsible. His family adores me."

Aman was quiet for a long moment. He had always been a good listener. Not the kind who just waits for his turn to talk, but the kind who absorbed your words, your silences, the spaces in between. He used to say my silence had a different texture depending on my mood.

"That's not what I asked, Simi," he said softly, using the old nickname. The one only he ever used.

And something in me broke. Just a tiny crack, but it was enough. The weight of the performance, the pressure of being the perfect daughter-in-law, the good Punjabi wife, the woman who had it all together… it all just rushed out through that crack.

I looked at him, and the truth tumbled out in a low, rushed whisper. "It's… hard, Aman. It's so fucking hard. He's… a stranger. We live in the same house, we sleep in the same bed, but he doesn't… see me. He sees the idea of me. The wife. The future mother of his children." I took a shaky gulp of wine. "There's no passion. There's just… routine. And his family is always there, with their expectations, their comments about my weight, about when we're going to have a baby… I feel like I'm slowly being buried alive in silk and gold and… and politeness."

The words kept coming. I told him about the loneliness that was a constant, cold companion even in a crowded room. About how Raj's touch was functional, a marital duty performed on Saturday nights. How he never looked at me the way Aman was looking at me right now - with a fierce, focused intensity that made me feel like I was the only woman in the world.

I was shivering. The cold was seeping through the silk of my saree. Without a word, Aman shrugged off his black kurta. He was wearing a simple white t-shirt underneath, and the sight of his bare arms, the corded muscle and the familiar trail of dark hair, sent a jolt through my system. He draped the kurta over my shoulders. It was warm from his body and smelled overwhelmingly of him. I pulled it tight around me, my knuckles white.

"I'm sorry," I whispered, mortified. "I shouldn't be dumping this on you. You don't need this."

"Stop," he said, his voice firm. "You can always dump it on me. You know that."

And I did know. That was our dynamic, from the very beginning. I was the fiery, chaotic artist; he was the calm, steady anchor. We'd been fuck-buddies, yes. Wild, insatiable, glorious fuck-buddies. But we'd also been friends. We'd talked for hours. He knew the map of my body and the landscape of my mind.

His closeness was suddenly a tangible force. The inch of space between his arm and mine was electric, humming with a current I remembered all too well. The memories weren't just mental images now; they were physical, visceral.

I remembered the first time, in his dorm room. The frantic, clumsy undressing, the way he'd paused, his breath hot against my neck, and whispered, "Tell me what you want, Simi. I want to hear you say it." And I, who had never been shy, had whispered back filthier things than I knew I was capable of.

I remembered the time we'd skipped our finals and spent the whole day in bed at a cheap hotel near the bus stand. The room had smelled of damp and disinfectant, but we hadn't cared. We'd ordered greasy butter chicken and fed it to each other between rounds. The sound of the ceiling fan was the soundtrack to our lazy, sated kisses.

I remembered how he used to fuck me. Not with the frantic, selfish energy of a boy, but with a focused, devastating precision. He watched me. He learned me. He knew that a certain pressure of his thumb just there could make my back arch off the bed. He knew that whispering my name in my ear when I was close would tip me over the edge. He knew that I loved to be teased, to be brought to the brink and held there until I was begging.

"Aah, Aman… please…"

"Yes, just like that… oh god…"

"Don't stop, don't you dare stop…"

The sounds I used to make for him. They were not the quiet, polite whimpers I sometimes allowed myself now. They were raw, unfiltered, loud. They were a celebration.

The heat between us on that balcony was no longer from the party inside. It was our own personal furnace. The air crackled. I could feel the ghost of his hands on my waist, the memory of his mouth on my breast. My skin was aching with it.

He turned his head to look at me, and his eyes were dark, the pupils blown wide. The playful glint was gone, replaced by a raw, hungry look I hadn't seen in five years.

"I remember," he said, his voice a low rumble, "how you used to taste."

The statement was so blatantly sexual, so far outside the bounds of our current reality, that it should have shocked me. It should have sent me running back to the safety of the party, back to my husband. Instead, a hot, slick wave of desire pooled low in my abdomen. My breath hitched.

"Aman…" It was a warning, a plea.

"I remember the sounds you'd make," he continued, his gaze dropping to my lips. "The way you'd chant my name like a prayer when you were close. I remember how you'd dig your nails into my back and leave marks for days."

He leaned in, just a fraction. Not enough for anyone watching to see, but enough for me to feel the heat of his body, to smell the beer on his breath. "Do you ever think about it, Simi? About us?"

My heart was a wild, frantic drum against my ribs. This was wrong. This was so, so wrong. I was a married woman. He was my past. This was a disaster waiting to happen.

But God, I was so tired of doing the right thing.

I looked into his eyes, my own vision blurring with a mix of lust and a profound, aching sadness. My voice was barely a whisper, a secret confessed to the cold night air.

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Stay tuned for Part 2