Chapter 7

Red

He had never been bothered.

He had reasoned with himself, that he had gotten so used to seeing that color around him, that it had stopped bothering him.

The blood, that he would encounter every other day, had made him immune. Immune to the color... Until he had done the inexplicable torture of marrying the dominatrix.

Dominatrix, a word nobody in their sane mind would actually associate on the chit of a girl... But he doubted he was sane anymore. The wretched thread, mangalsutra only in name and nothing more, had been giving him such a parched throat that even his harshest of training in the deserts hadn't given.

That mouli ka dhaaga, on her neck, would exude power over him, completely incomprehensible. He would be pulled towards her, watching the red thread cling to her neck, wanting to cling to her for his life.

The red sindoor in the partition of her hair. It was amazing what a red streak of sindoor could do to your existence.

For him, it held the power to rattle his soul.

It bound him involuntarily in ties that he himself was mystified of.

Strange, how he never thought this way before he saw her wearing his sindoor.

All the red on her, drew him in with a force so great, he felt his entire existence would dissipate if he didn't beckon to her call.

He was being crushed under the weight of this thunderous force... Yet, he still answered every time the red summoned.