By the twelfth week the notebook had become too thick for the low shelf. Rajesh kept it on the dining table now, open more often than closed, a black rectangle of permanent record beside the everyday clutter of keys and chargers and the small dish where he dropped his wedding ring when he washed his hands. The memory card stayed beside it. Twenty-nine entries. Then thirty-one. Then thirty-four. Each one written in his hand or spoken in his voice after the collection ended, while Priya remained open on the mattress or the carpet, the continuous dark map warm under his palm, the residual dual leak still tracking down her thighs.

The ritual of reading had settled into the opening of every longer session. Three recent entries, sometimes four, spoken aloud while his hand rested on the marked flesh and the cameras recorded his voice giving the debt its own history before the new night began. Priya listened every time. The men listened. The hunger in the room tightened around the sound of the husband’s written orders being returned to the air.