The heavy teak doors boomed shut like the final beat of a ceremonial drum, the brass lock sliding into place with a sound so absolute it traveled up Priya’s spine and nestled into the base of her skull. The world outside, the fading strains of shehnai, the drunken laughter of baraatis, the whispered envy of the other women dissolved into nothingness. Inside this chamber, time itself bent to the will of the man now turning slowly to face her.

Hundreds of clay oil lamps flickered in wall niches, their golden light painting moving shadows over centuries old frescoes of entwined bodies, gods and goddesses locked in cosmic copulation. The four-poster bed, carved from dark teak and heavy as a fortress, was an altar of crimson silk and fresh rose petals that released their fragrance into the dense, perfumed air full of jasmine, sandalwood, and something muskier, rawer, the unmistakable scent of two bodies already half consumed by hunger.