“C’mon, Nanny, if the party’s awful we’ll just leave. Promise,” said Anurag. Nandini hated when he called her that. “Or we can save time and leave now,” she said, eyeing the house across the road—more like a five-storied apartment building. Lights festooned the rooftop like a glimmering crown, the heartbeat of shitty techno pulsing across the night air.
Anurag turned to her. “Nanoo. Nantucket. We’re already here. Don’t be a loser and ditch like Sohini.” The taxi driver tapped his fingers on the wheel impatiently. “Let’s go. It’s fucking early! Bars in Kolkata close too quick.”
Nandini looked at her watch, squinting. Damn tiny lady watches, she should quit them for good. She took her phone out of her purse. 11:32 P.M. She’d rather be in bed watching a movie. Maybe she’d meet a hottie at the party. It had been a year since her last major heartbreak, almost as long since she’d gotten laid. Nandini chewed her lip. She’d still rather be in bed: there was always porn, less fuss than figuring out the fallout from fucking a guy. As for non-guys, that usually ended with her flirting for hours and never finding out whether her potential paramours were into women because she was afraid to ask.
“How do you know this guy again?” asked Nandini.
“College, barely. One of those dudes who invites everybody to everything. Has that whole building to himself. More importantly, he’ll have rich-people booze.” Nandini grunted. Free drinks were always a plus on her NGO income.
Anurag paid the driver and got out. Nandini shimmied out behind him, grateful that she’d at least worn strappy sandals and a black round-neck dress she’d ignored since purchase. A winter rooftop party in New Alipore meant their host was wealthy. They crossed the empty street as the cab rolled away. Windows and balconies dark under the streetlights. A street dog howled across the road. Nandini knew this was her last chance to go home. She’d had three beers at Bar-B-Q, and didn’t want to leave alone later and drunker than this.
“I’ll drop you home, yaar. Stop worrying,” said Anurag, reading her mind. The night watchman opened the gate to the house. Nandini was filled with a faint sense of dread. But she always was before big parties, at least since she’d hit thirty.
It was midnight, and Nandini already despised everyone. Including the yoga fanboy she was enduring for a few hits of his weed vape.
At least the terrace looked beautiful decked out in Christmas lights. The moon hung above them like a party decoration, shimmering in rising heat from a firepit in the center of the rooftop. The low buildings of New Alipore surrounded them, broken-toothed Kolkata skyline tongued by the winter-hazed pink of light pollution.
Anurag was talking to a girl who looked young enough to be a teen. Nandini found herself losing a bit of respect for her old school friend. Had he become just another horndog during his ad-man years in Mumbai? She fondly remembered the dork who’d never danced at their high school Coke-and-chips parties, and couldn’t hide his gratitude when girls like her forced him to.
“Are you in college?” yoga bro asked, probably to flatter her. To her shame, she was a little flattered.
12:33 A.M.
Exploring the empty floor beneath the terrace for a bathroom, Nandini found tacky devotional decorations lurking in the shadows, child-sized Ganeshas and Shivas judging her. Behind one bedroom door, boisterous laughter. She walked in on a couple in one of the bathrooms.
“…just let me leave.” Nandini caught the girl mid-sentence. She was bent over the sink, long black hair hanging down the back of her white T-shirt, which was tucked into belt-less black high-rise jeans. Nandini recognized the guy in the fancy dress shirt pushed up against her. Saurav, the host. The grimace of rage on his face had slackened to guilty nonchalance the moment the door opened. She saw his hand dart from the girl’s arm to his side. She also noticed the black marble countertop, smudged with powder, crowded with a plastic baggie of said powder, a cup, a bottle of vodka, and a credit card. The girl looked at her. There was black lipstick smeared across her damp face in a gash. She was washing it off. “Sorry!” Nandini closed the door, but lingered.
A few seconds of muffled conversation. Nandini heard the girl’s voice rise. Stop. I don’t want any more.
…fucking early, not leaving until we talk, Nandini heard Saurav say. A burst of laughter from the bedroom nearby sent her hurrying back upstairs.
1:20 A.M.
“I feel bad for guys nowadays,” said a woman named Rupa. “It’s like, they can’t even talk to us without being accused of being creeps.” Nandini was filled with rage at this gorgeous girl in her incredibly stylish sari. And she hated this conversation a little more than she enjoyed feeling superior to these fuckwits.
“Feminism brainwashes women into thinking they’re weak,” said Mukesh, a lawyer in a green polo shirt and carefully cultivated five o’clock shadow. “It’s women who have all the power in Indian society. I’m telling you, my grandmother, my aunts, they don’t take shit from any man—they pull the strings in the family. They don’t have this modern victim mentality. Feminism is for ugly girls with no self-esteem.”
“Ugly girl right here then.” Nandini raised her hand and wet her lips with her cup of Blue Label. Rupa grabbed her arm with infuriatingly presumed intimacy that nonetheless made Nandini’s heart flutter through the roiling anger.
“Oh no, you’re so pretty, don’t say that,” said Rupa.
“Oh, believe me, I know,” Nandini said, cocking an eyebrow at Rupa.
“Oh my god I love her. So sassy!” Rupa said. Pretty, not beautiful, Nandini reflected, the flutter gone to righteous disdain again. Too pudgy to be beautiful for Rupa. She and Mukesh drifted across Nandini’s vision in arcs to the spins.
Mukesh shrugged. “Fine. Not all feminists are ugly and insecure, not all men are assholes.”
“You’re … a lawyer, right?” said Nandini, ears hot. “You think in this, in a country where marital rape’s still legal, women have the power?”
“Look, I had a girlfriend who used to go nuts in bed,” said Mukesh, “slapping the fuck out of me. Wham bam, thank you ma’am. Hurt like hell.” Rupa gave a coy grimace of disgust as he went on. “That isn’t ‘sexual assault’ or whatever? If a man did that, bas. Done for.”
Nandini held her cup against her hip to hide a tremble—too much adrenaline. She was caught in the headlights of this man’s bad faith, provoked to incoherence, afraid to open her mouth for sounding hysterical. His smirk made clear how seriously he took his own claim of being assaulted.
Nandini wasn’t enjoying feeling superior anymore. She just wanted to leave. Then Saurav swept in and slapped Mukesh on the back. “Mojo, are you boring these girls? Ladies, please, stop hogging the joint!” Saurav’s belt buckle flashed in the firelight, rugged forearms carefully exposed, silk shirtsleeves rolled up. Nandini’s conversation with Rupa and Mukesh had almost made her forget the exchange she’d walked in on downstairs. She walked away, unsettled by Saurav’s cheerfulness. She wondered if she shouldn’t have left him alone with that girl. She wondered where the girl was.
At 2 A.M., a woman screamed.
Nandini was sharing a cigarette with Anurag at one corner of the roof, pissed he’d ghosted her earlier but not showing it because she didn’t want him to ghost her again. The music playlist had run out already, but the scream left complete silence in its wake.
Anurag looked. So did Nandini. It wasn’t a scream of excitement—too raw, ragged. Nandini’s skin prickled, her body gushing with chemicals waking her from her intoxicated stupor. It had come from a woman next to the fire. Saurav, Mukesh, and a long-haired guy in a hoodie stood around her. Too close to her. It was the woman from the bathroom. She looked small and frail in the middle of the three men. The arrangement of their bodies in that space, backed by the flames behind them, looked wrong. Sparks lilted up from behind her, as if she were a widow fresh on the pyre.
Nandini looked at Anurag, who was looking at them. A stream of smoke emerged from his lips. Above them, a plane sailed by, its roar humming in the clouds.
The men were talking urgently to the woman, who was shaking her head. Tears streaked her face, dark with dissolving kajol. Her loose, straight black hair reminded Nandini of any number of doomed women, from Ophelia to that ghost from the Ring movies.
The woman did a little inadvertent tap dance in her sneakers, white and oversized at the ends of her thin, tapering legs. Painfully childlike. That dance, Nandini thought, was her trying to position herself, for what? She raised herself on those big sneakers, as if to compensate for her small stature, and shouted in a broken voice: “He wants to rape me.”
Nandini felt a hum flood her ears.
Saurav grabbed the woman’s arm and shushed her. She wrenched her arm away, pleading to the guests: “Please, please don’t let them touch me.” The other two men moved closer to her, saying unintelligible things.
Nandini felt a lurch inside her, everything inside her gut creeping up her throat. The five or six guests other than Anurag and her had spread to the edges of the rooftop, talking amongst themselves.
Nandini moved closer to the men, her world pulsating and reeling. “Wait,” Anurag whispered.
“Excuse me,” said Nandini, slow and steady. “Maybe you guys should give her some space?”
The men looked at her. Her brain told her to turn around and leave. Her heart, drenched in scotch and smoked in weed, pushed her forward with each thump in her ears.
“Oh, great. Maybe you should mind your own business, Madam Feminist,” Mukesh said, his smirking humor gone.
“She sounds upset,” said Nandini, barely able to hear herself for the hum of riled blood.
“You don’t know her, okay, she lies—” Saurav placed a hand on the long-haired guy’s arm, stopping him talking. “She’s my girlfriend,” Saurav hissed at Nandini. “I’ll take care of her, not you.” He prodded his chest where the dress shirt had popped open to reveal a drink-stained tank top. His eyes were bloodshot, brimming with tears.
The woman shook her head, face crumpled. “We’ve broken up. He kissed me on the stairs, I didn’t want to, I told him not to touch me.”
Saurav whirled to face her, making her flinch. “Kissing you is rape now? Am I that much of a monster to you?”
She shook her head. “You—he was dragging me down the stairs. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, but I said not to touch me.”
“Lower your voice,” said Mukesh with soft menace, looking around at the other guests, who were ignoring them. Several were leaving, air-kissing each other in the background.
“Look, Priya, right?” Saurav said to Nandini. He looked like a Bollywood star, with his open shirt and hair hanging over his forehead. “It’s fine. She’s just had too much to drink. Here I am, trying to be a gentleman—”
“I told you not to touch me,” the woman sobbed.
“Gentle. Man.” Saurav gritted his teeth. “Trying to drive you home because you’re wasted. And you go off like a crazy fucking bitch.”
Anurag stepped up beside Nandini. “Guys. Come on, no need for language like that.” Nandini felt like hugging him.
“Arre, hero aa gya.” Mukesh laughed.
“Good, I’m kind of in the mood for a fight.” The guy in the hoodie stepped toward Anurag. Nandini felt like the air was combustible with testosterone. “You don’t know this chick, bro.” Saurav glared at Anurag, whose face had paled. “She’s not into the nice-guy act. Nah, she’s into monsters like me, right, baby? So back. Off.”
The woman moaned and buckled to her knees, hugging her torso. Saurav stepped toward her. Her head snapped up, eyes wide. “Don’t. Don’t touch me, I’m begging you.” She retched, palms on the ground.
“Fucking drama,” mumbled Mukesh.
Nandini took a deep breath. Hands in fists, she walked straight into the bitter scent of cologne that surrounded the three men. She could feel their animal heat, the acrid smell of tobacco, weed, and alcohol mingling with their nervous sweat. She squatted and peeled the crying girl’s slippery hand off the ground. It was cold, small in hers.
“I’m taking her to the bathroom. Just let me talk to her. I’ll calm her down, okay?”
Not waiting for their approval, she held the woman’s hand and led her across the roof to the stairwell.
The men were outside the bathroom door. Nandini could hear Anurag trying to reason with them, appease them with talk of the girl not being worth the trouble. Nandini imagined them pacing outside like hyenas. When they’d followed her in a pack down the stairs, she’d had to suppress the urge to run. At least rich people had locks on bathroom doors too.
The woman clung to Nandini’s arms. “They won’t let me leave. Thank you,” she said, face pale and contorted, eyes ringed with leaking black. Her lips were so close Nandini remembered how drunk, stoned, and horny she was. But the girl’s breath was rancid. “I think it’s too late,” she slurred, and let go of Nandini. She sat down heavily on the floor. Her sneakers squeaked as her legs slid across the tiles. “Why’d I come here. I’m so stupid. I’m so evil. I was hoping for this to happen,” she slurred. Nandini held the woman’s face in her hands, patting her cheeks lightly. Unlike her hands, the girl’s face was radiating heat. “Hey, stop that. None of this is your fault. That’s those assholes talking,” Nandini told her.
“Huh-hurts. I don’t even believe in prisons. Mm fucking social anarchist. Death? Even they don’t deserve that. Do they?” For a moment, the woman’s eyes sparkled with clarity, tears lensing the dilated wells of her pupils.
“We should be so lucky. In this country, rich douchebags don’t get prison or death. Sweetie, listen to me. I’m calling an Uber, taking you home. I’m Nandini. What’s your name?”
“Mmmhm.” The woman winced. “Dakini.”
“That’s … Okay. Dakini. I—”
“When Saurav dragged me down the stairs, kissed me.” Dakini closed her eyes, coughing against her gag reflex. “It woke up.” She retched. Nandini stepped back and lifted the toilet lid. Dakini’s T-shirt was soaked in sweat, white gone gray. She sounded delirious.
“Uber’s ten minutes away. Hold on, sweetheart. You need to throw up,” said Nandini.
Dakini burped and looked at Nandini. “My mother’s a witch,” she whispered.
Nandini didn’t know what to say to that.
“Saurav. Raped me. When we were together.” Oh god, why did I come to this party, thought Nandini, and cursed her own self-pity. “Mamma made sure no one would again.” Dakini gasped in pain. “I know Saurav doesn’t deserve me. God I wish I’d, realized that earlier. But, ah. No one deserves what’s coming. I can’t hold it in anymore. I need to let it out.”
“Let,” Nandini whispered. “Let what out?”
“Me.” Dakini smiled, her teeth black. How the fuck did her teeth turn black, thought Nandini. Dakini untucked her shirt and raised it to reveal her stomach, glistening under the fluorescent blue light, a navel piercing heaving silver with each labored breath. Nandini recoiled at what she thought were fresh self-harming scars all over Dakini’s belly. But the dark wounds were moving, a glyphic language crawling across her skin. Invisible razors sliced runes of parted skin into her.
“Maybe. A crazy bitch. Not a liar,” said Dakini.
“What the fuck is going on? What the fuck is that?”
“A curse.” Dakini’s jaw worked like she was having a seizure, teeth creaking against each other. “On those who wrong me. Oh. No time. Oh, god. It’s. Huh. I’m coming. My bones will be blades. It won’t stop with him. It’s s-so angry.”
“Wait, what do you mean,” Nandini asked, voice trembling.
The door shook as someone thumped on it. “The fuck is going on in there? I need to talk to her,” came Saurav’s voice. Dakini shut her eyes and covered her ears. “I tried. I told him not to touch me,” she said. The doorknob was rattling now. “Stop,” Dakini moaned.
Nandini didn’t know what to do. She was struggling to breathe. The bathroom felt stifling, hot.
“If you don’t open this door right fucking now I’m breaking it,” said Saurav.
Dakini’s eyes rolled up into her head.
There were fingers slithering out of the slits in her belly, like someone in black body paint tearing through a flimsy blanket. Except that it was human skin stretching and yawning, squelching terribly. Nandini lunged to the toilet and hurled up a scalding torrent of half-digested masala chips. The light blew out with a sharp pop. Darkness. Saurav’s fist against the door, matching her heartbeat.
Nandini spat bitter strings into the dark, panting. She was afraid to reach out into the oily black, which throbbed as her head spun. “Dakini?” she whimpered.
“I’m sorry,” Dakini croaked, her throat a badly tuned instrument. It won’t stop with him, thought Nandini. Something ripped loudly. Please let it be cloth. Nandini sat beside the toilet and pushed her back against the cold wall. Bad trip. She was dozing on the floor of this bathroom, dreaming this. She flinched at a series of snaps, so loud. A pale line of light resolved under the door, broken by the shadows of feet outside. Fists on the door.
The tiles squealed as something wet shifted across them. Dakini was moving. Or something was. Nandini smelled diesel fumes and ammonia. She gulped against her nausea.
“Hello?” shouted Saurav. Something clicked. The line of light under the door expanded as it opened to the hallway. Nandini only saw Saurav for a second. Something flew out of the dark, a hot breeze against her.
A splintering crunch like a branch breaking off a tree. Confused, Nandini felt the bathroom shower turn on, drenching her in a blast of hot water. But she was tucked in by the toilet, not in the cubicle. A barbell thud against the floor. Saurav’s head slid into the dark bathroom, his body a doll tossed five feet into the hallway from the door. It twitched, misting the air with red. “Anurag, run,” Nandini tried to say, the smell of rust filling her nostrils. Through the frame of the door, she saw Mukesh ten feet away, frozen in shock. Behind him, Anurag ran. Good boy, thought Nandini. The question—where was Dakini—was answered as something dropped off the ceiling. The silhouette was all woman, Dakini, skin bronzed in liquid darkness like bilious war paint. But there were too many limbs writhing off her back. The boring thought: spider. The thing that was Dakini darted and vanished up the wall in a patter of palms. Mukesh fell, his kneecaps cracking on the floor and sending all of him down with a smack. The hallway lights blew out. Nandini heard breath leave Mukesh’s opened throat like the whistle of a kettle. Silence fell again, except for the distant sound of running footsteps, and a gurgling trickle as dark puddles pooled across marble.
Gagging at the warm wetness on her clothes, the iron in her nostrils, Nandini counted. One, two, three. The hallway was dim but visible now, a wash of light coming from where it turned toward a living room. But she couldn’t move. Another scream emerged from somewhere in the building. Genderless and guttural. She prayed the remaining guests had left. Prayed Anurag had run fast enough. Saurav’s head sat in the vague light from the hallway, casting a lone shadow across tiles now muddy with blood. Small blessing it was turned away from Nandini.
Nandini shivered by the toilet, soaked dress glued to the wall. Hours, or minutes, or seconds. She clenched her teeth and crawled across the wet floor, afraid of slipping. Past the head in its puddle, averting her eyes.
But Dakini was out there, along with the bodies, two visible—how many not? She retreated back by the toilet, grabbing her purse. Took out her phone. Dark red prints on the screen, stippling the painful light. 3:17 A.M. A small part of her said: Call someone. She couldn’t. Didn’t know how, in that moment. What would she say? Hysterical, crazy bitch, ranting. She dropped the phone and grabbed her mouth to stifle a scream. A dark shape was crouched at the bend of the hallway, beyond the corpses. Four limbs on the floor, more twisting against its body, caressing itself. Like a fly cleaning itself. Some of the hands held objects, sharp and curved. Framed by the hair hanging off its head, two eyes resolved like stars at dusk, a distant cosmic light burning in the vessel of a woman. Nandini shut her eyes tight against the sight.
Nandini jerked awake, her teeth chattering. There was someone at the door, blocking the light from the hallway. Nandini backed into the wall.
Dakini, dressed in nothing but shadows, walked over Saurav’s head. No extra limbs on her silhouette. She crouched down and took Nandini’s shaking hand, like Nandini had done for her up on the roof. Gently, she pulled Nandini to her small body, and held her. Bloody flesh to bloody flesh, like newborns in the slick of creation.
“You survived,” said Dakini.