Revenge on my brother

The frosting had gone hard at the edges by the time I scraped the last of the cake into the bin. Pink sugar stuck to the knife. I ran the water until it steamed and held my wrists under it, watching the skin turn red. In the other room my brother was still on his phone, laughing at something Ravi had sent. The laugh was the same one he used when he wanted everyone to know he was comfortable.

My name is Ananya. I turned twenty-six yesterday. The cousins who came brought cheap sweets and left before the power cut. None of them stayed long enough to notice that the new shoes I had asked for were still only a picture on my phone. I had shown my brother the listing the week before—plain black heels, nothing pretty, just something that would not split after four hours on the shop floor. He looked at the price, then at my hips, and said, loud enough for the cousins in the kitchen, “You don’t need shoes. You need to stop eating so the ones you have stop breaking under you.”

They laughed. He laughed with them. I smiled because that is what I do when he talks about my body like it is a shared joke. Later, after they left, he told me he was not giving me the money. He said I would only waste it on more food. Then he went back to messaging Ravi. The shoes are in a box by the door now. I bought them with the night shifts he does not know about. He has not seen them yet.

He likes to act like he runs this flat. He checks my phone if I leave it out. He asks who I spoke to if I come home after nine. He tells me which of his friends I am allowed to reply to. But the second anyone bigger than him opens their mouth he shrinks. I have seen it with our uncle. I have seen it with the building manager. Most of all I have seen it with Rajesh.

Rajesh is his manager and his rival. They joined the same office two years apart. Rajesh climbed. My brother stayed where he was put. Rajesh does not bother hiding what he thinks. He speaks to my brother the way some men speak to waiters who have already got the order wrong. For months Rajesh has been texting me. Short messages at first, then longer ones that arrived after my brother was asleep. He asked what I was wearing. He said my brother talked about me at work like I was a problem he was stuck managing. I ignored every one of them. I deleted the chats. I told myself it was nothing.

I am not ignoring them anymore.

Ravi is different. Ravi is my brother’s best friend, the one he brings home when he wants to look like he has people. Ravi laughs loud and stays late and looks at me like he is already deciding what I am worth. Last month he waited until my brother stepped onto the balcony, then told me I should stop wearing loose clothes because it only made me look bigger. My brother heard the end of it when he came back in. He laughed and said Ravi was only playing. Ravi did not laugh. He kept his eyes on me until I looked away. My brother did not notice. He never notices when it is me.

The anger sits cold now. It does not spike. It fills. On my birthday it filled high enough that I could feel it under my ribs while I cut the cake and smiled. It is still there when I hear my brother moving around at night, locking the door, checking his phone, sure that nothing in these rooms can touch him. It is there when I remember Rajesh’s last message, still sitting unread: a single line asking if I was free this weekend and whether my brother knew I answered other men. It is there when I think about Ravi’s eyes and the way my brother laughed.

I have started keeping the messages.

The plan is not complicated. It is only patient.

I will reply to Rajesh tomorrow. Not eager. Just enough that he knows I finally read him. I will meet him once, away from this flat, and I will let him talk about my brother the way he already wants to. He will tell me how small my brother is at the office, how he flinches when Rajesh raises his voice, how the promotion my brother keeps promising our uncle is already decided against him. I will listen. I will ask small questions. I will let Rajesh put his hand on my knee under the table and I will not move it. When he asks what I want, I will tell him I want my brother to understand, slowly, that the things he laughs about can be taken from him.

After that I will let Rajesh have more. I will go to the small hotel he uses when he does not want to go home. I will let him fuck me while he talks about my brother. I will make him say the things he only thinks at the office—how soft my brother is, how he begs for shifts, how he would cry if he knew where I was. I will keep my phone on the bedside table, screen down, so Rajesh can see it and know I could send something if I chose. I will not send it yet. I will let him finish inside me and then I will ask, very quietly, what else he can do to the promotion. He will tell me. Men like Rajesh always tell you more after they have come.

Ravi will be next, but not from me. Rajesh and Ravi drink together. Once Rajesh is already using me, I will let him mention, carefully, that my brother’s sister is not as loyal as my brother thinks. Ravi will want to see for himself. He will message me because that is what he does when he smells weakness. I will answer him the same way I answered Rajesh—late, short, enough. When he comes to the flat the next time my brother invites him, I will find a reason to be in the kitchen alone with him. I will let him stand too close. I will let him say the things he has wanted to say since the balcony. Then I will tell him to meet me the following night, and I will make sure my brother is the one who thinks he arranged it.

With Ravi I will be cheaper. I will let him talk about my body the way he already does. I will let him fuck me in the back of his car or in the cheap room above the bar he likes, and I will make him describe, while he is inside me, exactly what he thinks of my brother. I will record none of it. I will only remember. Later I will use the memory the way I use everything else—small pieces, dropped where they will travel. A sentence to Rajesh about what Ravi said. A sentence to Ravi about what Rajesh promised. Neither of them will trust the other fully after that. My brother will feel the shift before he understands it. The promotion will stall. The uncle will start asking questions. Ravi will grow bored of defending someone who cannot keep his own sister in line.

His girlfriend already half-knows. She has heard the small stories. Once Rajesh and Ravi are both moving, I will make sure one clear detail reaches her—not from me, from one of them, drunk and pleased with himself. She does not need to leave. She only needs to stop arguing when other people speak badly about him. After that the rest is gravity.

I will not shout. I will not leave proof he can show anyone. I will let him keep believing, for as long as it is useful, that he is still the one who decides what happens in this flat. The shoes will be on my feet tomorrow. He will ask where the money came from. I will tell him I saved it. He will not believe me, but he will have no way to check. While he is deciding whether to push, I will already be deciding which night belongs to Rajesh and which night belongs to Ravi, and how many times I will let each of them finish while they talk about the man who called me fat on my birthday and laughed.

The water in the dreams has reached the bed now. He is still sitting at his laptop. He has not looked up. I stand in the doorway and watch the level climb. I do not call his name. I do not plan to.