The phone buzzed against the wooden sill, a low vibration that cut through the rhythm of the waves. Nisha didn't move to answer it at first. She stood at the open window, letting the salt air cool the dampness at the back of her neck, feeling the slow settle of her pulse after the old man's weight had lifted from her body. The sun was lower now, the light through the cedar trees gone amber and soft, and she could smell the sea the way she'd smelled it as a child—before everything, before the pills and the mirrors and the locked doors.

The phone buzzed again. Insistent.

She picked it up. The screen glowed with the woman's name, and she read the message twice before the words fully landed: Another client. Nearby. His fantasy is a girlfriend. He pays well. You available?

Nisha's thumb hovered over the screen. Behind her, the old man shifted on the bed, and she heard the soft rustle of sheets, the creak of the frame as he sat up. She didn't turn around. She typed: How much?

The reply came fast, almost eager: Ten thousand. He's lonely. He wants to be seen with someone. A girlfriend, not a daughter. Can you do that?

Ten thousand. The number sat in her chest like a stone dropped into still water. That was more than her husband made in a month of weighing rice. That was two months of hormones, maybe three, with enough left over for the good bangles she'd seen in the market, the ones with the fine gold work that caught the light like a promise.

She typed: Yes.

Then, because the woman liked details: Send the address.

The old man cleared his throat. "You're leaving."

It wasn't a question. Nisha turned, the phone still in her hand, and looked at him properly for the first time since he'd woken. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, his white hair mussed, his eyes still soft and stunned, the way a man looks when he's been given something he'd stopped hoping for. His hands were folded in his lap, and he was watching her with a tenderness that made her throat tighten.

"Yes, Papa," she said. The word came out easy, practiced, but there was something underneath it that surprised her—a small, genuine warmth she hadn't expected to feel.

"You are amazing," he said. "You gave me pleasure. Real pleasure. I didn't think—" He stopped, swallowed. "I didn't think I'd ever feel that again."

Nisha crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed beside him. She didn't touch him, but she let her presence settle, let the silence hold the weight of what he'd said. The clock on the wall ticked. The ocean rolled on, indifferent and vast.

"You deserve to feel it," she said. "You're a good man."

His eyes glistened. "Will you come again?"

"If you want me to." She reached out and took his hand, felt the papery skin, the tremor in his fingers. "Next time, you ask for me by name."

"What name?"

She looked at him, this old man who had called her beta and meant it, who had wept into her hair and slept on her like she was something precious. She could give him the name. It was just a word. But the word was hers, the truest thing she had, and she wasn't ready to hand it over to a man who might not understand what it cost her.

"Nisha," she said. "You ask for Nisha."

He repeated it, tasting it. "Nisha." A small smile creased his face. "That's a beautiful name."

"It's my name." She stood, smoothing her salwar, feeling the weight of the money in her bag against her hip. "Goodbye, Papa."

"Goodbye, beta." His voice cracked on the word. "Thank you."

She walked out of the bedroom, through the dim living room with its face-down photograph and its ticking clock, and out onto the porch. The cedar boards creaked under her heels. The air was cool and salt-bright, and she stood there for a moment, letting the wind lift her hair off her shoulders, feeling the sting of the love bite on her throat where his mouth had been.

She didn't look back. She walked down the path to the road, her bag swinging against her hip, the money a solid, comforting pressure against her body. Ten thousand more. The woman's address glowed on her phone, and she read it as she walked: a house on the other side of the town, near the old temple, the one with the carved pillars and the pigeons that nested in the eaves.

She knew the house. Everyone knew the house. It belonged to a man who had been married once, a long time ago, and who now lived alone with his books and his silence.

Nisha stopped at the corner and pulled out her compact mirror. Her nose ring caught the light, a small glint of gold against her skin. Her nails were still perfect, the polish un-chipped, the long ovals gleaming. She ran a hand through her hair, feeling the weight of it, the way it fell in waves past her waist, and she thought about the man who wanted a girlfriend, who wanted to be seen with someone, and she wondered what he would see when he looked at her.

She fixed her sindur line, though the woman had said not to wear it. She'd wiped it off before the old man, and she hadn't redrawn it. Her forehead felt bare, exposed, and she touched the spot where the red line usually sat, a small, unconscious gesture.

She was not a wife tonight. She was a girlfriend. She was whatever the man needed her to be, for the right price.

The walk took her through the narrow lanes of the town, past the vegetable market with its piles of green chilies and coriander, past the tea stall where the old men sat and argued about politics, past the tailor's shop where Maya worked, the woman who had taught her the words men say at climax, the words that could make a man weep into her hands.

She didn't stop. She didn't look in the window. She kept walking, her heels clicking on the stones, her hair swinging, and she felt the eyes of the men at the tea stall follow her, felt the weight of their looking, and she let them look. She was used to it. She had been looked at her whole life, first with confusion, then with curiosity, then with hunger, and she had learned to carry the looking like a garment, something she could put on and take off at will.

The temple came into view, its carved pillars rising against the orange sky. The pigeons were settling in the eaves, their soft coos filling the air. The house was just beyond it, a low white building with a blue door and a small garden gone wild with bougainvillea.

Nisha stopped at the gate. The address on her phone matched the number painted on the wall. She could see a light burning in the front window, a warm yellow glow that spilled out onto the path.

She took a breath. She adjusted her dupatta, making sure it sat right on her shoulders. She touched her nose ring, checked her nails, ran a hand through her hair one last time.

Then she walked up the path, her heels crunching on the gravel, and she raised her hand to knock.

Her knuckles hovered just above the wood. The silence of the evening pressed in around her, broken only by the distant coo of pigeons and the soft rush of her own breath. She could feel the money in her bag, the weight of it, the promise of it. She could feel the love bite on her throat, the old man's gratitude still warm on her skin. She could feel the woman's message glowing in her pocket, the address, the name of the man who wanted a girlfriend, who wanted to be seen with someone, who was waiting on the other side of this door.

She knocked.

The sound of her knuckles against the wood was louder than she expected, a sharp double rap that seemed to hang in the evening air. She let her hand fall, flexed her fingers, and caught herself checking her nails again—a nervous habit she'd never been able to break, the way her thumb would find the edge of her index finger and trace the polished oval like a worry bead.

No footsteps. No sound from inside. Just the pigeons settling in the temple eaves, their soft coos a low murmur against the distant rhythm of the sea. She shifted her weight, felt the gravel shift under her heels, and the small sting she'd been ignoring all the way from the beach house finally registered—a fresh scratch on her ankle, a thin red line where a thorn or a sharp stone had caught her on the path. She looked down at it, at the delicate skin of her ankle, the way the red line stood out against the smooth, hairless curve of her leg. It would fade by morning. Everything faded by morning.

She raised her hand to knock again, and the door opened.

Not all the way—just a crack, a sliver of warm yellow light that fell across her face and caught the glint of her nose ring. A man's eye peered through the gap, dark and quick, taking her in from the top of her head to the tips of her heels. She held still under the inspection, let him look, the way she'd learned to let men look. Her chin stayed level. Her hands stayed loose at her sides. She was a girlfriend tonight, and a girlfriend had nothing to hide.

"Yes?" His voice was low, careful, the voice of a man who had practiced being alone.

"The woman sent me." She kept her own voice soft, melodic, the voice she used when she wanted to be heard as a woman. "She said you were looking for company."

The door opened wider. He was older than she'd expected—not old like the man at the beach house, but worn, the way a man gets when he's spent too many years in his own head. His hair was salt-and-pepper, neatly combed, and he wore a pressed white shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows. His eyes were the thing she noticed first, though. They were hungry, but not in the way the old man's had been hungry. This was a different kind of hunger, quieter, more patient. The hunger of a man who had been waiting a long time and had learned to wait well.

"You're early," he said. "I wasn't—" He stopped, shook his head. "Come in. Please."

She stepped over the threshold, and the door closed behind her with a soft click that felt like a seal. The room was nothing like the beach house. No dim curtains, no face-down photographs, no ticking clock. This was a man's house, neat and spare, with bookshelves lining one wall and a single armchair by the window. The light was warm and low, and the air smelled of old paper and sandalwood, the kind of smell that settled into a house after years of quiet.

"Can I get you something?" He was standing by the bookshelf, his hands clasped in front of him, uncertain. "Tea? Water?"

"Tea would be nice." She smiled, a small, practiced smile that she let soften at the edges. "If it's not too much trouble."

"No trouble. No trouble at all." He moved toward the kitchen, then stopped, turned back. "I'm—" He hesitated. "You can call me Raj."

"Raj." She repeated it, tasting it, the way she'd tasted the old man's name. "I'm Nisha."

His face did something complicated—relief, surprise, a flicker of something that might have been hope. "Nisha," he said, and the way he said it, soft and careful, made her think he'd been practicing the name in his head for a long time, waiting for a woman to walk through his door and claim it.

He disappeared into the kitchen, and she heard the clink of cups, the hiss of a kettle. She stood in the middle of his living room, her bag still against her hip, and let herself look. The bookshelves were full—novels, history, a row of poetry with worn spines. A framed photograph on the mantel, turned slightly away, showed a woman in a sari, her face half-hidden by the angle. Nisha didn't move toward it. She knew better than to look too closely at the ghosts in a man's house.

He came back with two cups of tea, steam rising in the warm light. He handed her one, and his fingers brushed hers—a small, deliberate touch that lingered a beat longer than necessary. She let it happen, let her fingers curl around the cup, let the warmth seep into her palms.

"The woman said you wanted a girlfriend," she said, not looking at him, looking at the tea instead. "Not a daughter. Not a wife. A girlfriend."

He was quiet for a moment. Then: "Is that a problem?"

"No." She looked up, met his eyes. "I just like to know what I'm walking into."

He set his cup down on the mantel, next to the photograph. "I've been alone for a long time," he said. "I don't remember how to be with someone. I don't remember how to talk to a woman, how to—" He stopped, ran a hand through his hair. "I just want to feel like I'm not alone. Just for a while. Is that—" He looked at her, and his eyes were raw, open, the hunger in them naked and unguarded. "Is that too much to ask?"

Nisha set her cup down beside his. She crossed the room, slowly, letting her heels click on the wooden floor, and stopped in front of him. She reached up and touched his face, her long nails grazing his jaw, and she felt the tremor that ran through him at the contact.

"No," she said. "It's not too much to ask."

She let her hand rest there, let the silence hold the moment, and she thought about the old man at the beach house, the way he'd wept into her hair, the way he'd called her beta and meant it. She thought about her husband, weighing rice at the shop, his burn-scarred hand moving through the grains, not knowing where she was or what she was doing. She thought about the woman on the phone, the list of men, the way the list never seemed to end.

She was a girlfriend tonight. She was whatever this man needed her to be, for the right price.

And she was still Nisha. She was always Nisha.