I couldn’t keep up with his pace. At the entrance, the watchman tried to stop us, but seeing the intensity in his face, he backed down. My companion quickly opened the lift and pressed the button for the second floor. He was breathing heavily. When we reached the second floor, he threw open the lift doors, strode to the flat’s entrance, and told me, “Stay back. Come when I call you.” He pushed me aside and banged loudly on the locked grill gate.
A man opened the door, demanding, “Who is it?” Seeing him, he glanced sideways at me—it was the man who’d taken my money. He gestured towards me as if asking, “Is this him?” When I nodded, he punched the man squarely in the face. The man fell back with a thud, clutching his nose. Without hesitation, my companion jumped on him and landed two more punches. By then, two overweight women, a young girl, and two other scantily clad men appeared from inside, fear etched on their faces. They seemed more inclined to flee than intervene. I seized the opportunity, slipped inside, and locked the door.
“Who the hell are you? I’ll call the police!” the injured man yelled, blood dripping from his nose and hands. The overweight women protected him, shouting in Hindi, "Kya re, Kya re." They kept repeating the word “Soothiya,” which I didn’t understand.
“Go ahead, call the police! You take my money and then call the police on me? Go on!”
The man with the broken nose finally understood the situation. He quickly regained his composure, looked at the others, and said, “No problem… everything’s fine. My old friend… Sorry… Carry on,” dismissing them back into the other room. He grabbed a tissue from the table and wiped his face, then turned to us. “So, what do you want now?”
My companion grinned. “What else? We want what we paid for. We don’t care. Even if you call the police on us, it’s your word against ours. If the truth comes out, you’re the one in trouble. If you give us what we want, there won’t be any problems for anyone.”
The man with the broken nose hesitated. “Look,” he said, “this isn’t as easy as you think. It’s hard work. It’s not what you imagine. Think it over. If you still want to do this, you’ll have to do as we say if you want to keep getting work. Otherwise, don’t come crying to me later.”
We just stared at him. “What are you looking at? Do you understand?” he asked, then called into the inner room, “Madam!” One of the two overweight women from the fight came out. He gestured towards us. She looked us up and down and drawled, “Dono bhi…” The man with the broken nose quickly interjected, “No… no,” and called another woman. She gave us the same appraising look as the first. For the first time, I felt a wave of embarrassment. The first woman gestured to me, and the second to my companion. Instead of the excitement I’d expected about being with a woman, I felt only disappointment at the prospect of being with such an overweight woman.
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