Ranjeet didn't even feel himself slipping away. One moment he was sprawled on the tangled sheets, exhausted, Priya’s hair tickling his chest; the next, the waking world collapsed and he plummeted into the dream. It came on so fast his sleeping cock was already a thick, aching iron bar before his mind could catch up.

The dream always began in the same holy place, the old haveli garden of his fifteenth year, where the jasmine climbed the crumbling stone walls and the moon dripped cold silver through the peepal leaves. And there she was: Rani. His childhood crush, the zamindar’s daughter, so fair she seemed to glow in the starlight. She stood by the broken marble fountain in a simple white cotton saree with a skinny red border, her hair oiled and braided, a tiny gold nose pin winking at him. Her kohl rimmed eyes were enormous and full of a trembling innocence that made the young Ranjeet’s heart pound against his ribs. She looked at him exactly the way she used to from behind her latticed window gazing at him with shy, soft, terrified and longing all at once.