Becoming Kusum

Chapter 4: The Recipe for a Trap

Eight months earlier

Eight months before the woman called Kusum sat in the Oberoi waiting for Philip, there had been a man named Dev.

He had not yet met the House. He had not yet met the suit. And he had no idea that his life had already begun moving toward its end.

Eight months earlier. Before the suit. Before the name.

It was 8 PM on Marine Drive. The Necklace Road was lighting up as the sun went down over the Arabian Sea. Devendra Deshmukh—Dev to his friends, Rohan to the woman he was currently pursuing, Vikram to last week's conquest—sat at the bar of The Oberoi's Eau de Monsoon, nursing a single malt that cost more than most Mumbai households spent on weekly groceries.

He was twenty-eight, lean and carefully groomed. His face made people trust him before they had any reason to.

That was part of what made him successful.

Dev had learned that people rarely remembered the exact words.

They remembered how he made them feel.

So he listened first.

Asked the right question.

Waited.

Then gave them just enough of himself to make them believe they had discovered something private.

He had turned listening into a weapon long before he admitted it to himself.

He checked his reflection in the bar mirror, straightened his cuff and looked at the room again.

Navy blazer. Black shirt. Rolex Submariner catching the bar lights.

He hadn't grown up in places like this. He had simply learned how to fit in.

After a while, he stopped thinking of it as pretending.

That was the dangerous part.

The different names, different stories and different versions of himself no longer felt like lies while he was telling them.

They felt like skills.

He had become good enough at becoming whoever people wanted that he had stopped asking which version was actually him.

His phone buzzed. Tinder notification. Neha, 24, Marketing Executive, 2 miles away.

He opened the app and reviewed their conversation. For two weeks he'd been Rohan, a sensitive architect who had been hurt by women who only wanted money.

She had responded the way he wanted.

They were meeting here in twenty minutes.
Dev finished his drink, caught the bartender's eye, ordered another. He was early on purpose. It gave him time to watch the room.

The bar was filling with Mumbai's wealthy crowd.

Dev watched them for a few minutes.

Their clothes. Their voices. The way they spoke to staff.

He could copy any of them.

He kept the bottle hidden where no one would think to look: behind his grandmother's portrait.

The grandmother was real. The devotion was the only performance he still found amusing.

He called his grandmother every Sunday.

He knew exactly how she liked her tea and complained if the cook used too much ginger.

None of it made him a good man.

Dev knew that.

He could remember someone's birthday, bring his grandmother the tea she liked and listen patiently to a friend's problems.

He simply divided people into two groups.

People who mattered.

And everyone else.

His phone buzzed again. I'm here. Red dress by the entrance.

Dev looked up and saw Neha.

Neha arrived five minutes late and immediately apologized.

“I hate making people wait,” she said.

Dev smiled.

He filed that away.

"Neha? I'm Rohan." He took her hand, held it a second too long, let his thumb brush her wrist. "You look stunning. That color is perfect on you."

"Thank you." She blushed. They always blushed. "You look... different than your photos. Better."

"I used old photos. Vanity." He guided her to the bar, hand at the small of her back, claiming territory. "What can I get you? Champagne? Wine?"

"Champagne, please."

Perfect.

They sat. They talked. Dev performed Rohan—passionate about sustainable architecture, wounded by a cheating ex-girlfriend, searching for something real in Mumbai's artificial world. He asked questions, remembered details, leaned in when she spoke about her mother's illness, her career struggles, her fear of ending up alone.

By the second glass of champagne, she was leaning toward him.

By the third, she was telling him things she hadn't told her therapist.

Dev smiled. She was falling exactly where he wanted her to.

Dev excused himself. "Bathroom. Back in two minutes."

"Don't be long."

He smiled, the warm one, the one that promised everything. "Never."

The Oberoi's bathrooms were luxurious, marble and chrome, attendants who pretended not to notice what happened in the stalls. Dev entered a stall, locked it, removed the dropper from his blazer pocket. Three drops. Enough to keep her compliant for about ninety minutes and leave her with several hours of missing memory. The hangover would be easy to blame on cheap champagne.

He returned to the bar, slid into his seat, reached for her glass to "accidentally" knock it, to apologize, to order a fresh one into which the drops would disappear.

But Neha was already drinking, finishing her fourth glass, and she reached for his hand, and her eyes were soft, and she said, "Rohan, I feel like I've known you forever."

Dev paused. Usually he needed the chemical. Usually women did not offer themselves so easily.

"Maybe you have," he said, improvising. "In another life."

"I don't believe in that. But I believe in chemistry." She leaned closer. "My apartment is in Andheri. Ten minutes by taxi. I want to show you my view."

Dev looked at her. The red dress, the hope in her eyes, the vulnerability that wasn't performance but genuine need. He could still do it. Drop the liquid into another drink. Wait for her eyes to glaze over. Take her to Andheri, photograph her unconscious body and add another trophy to his collection.

But he was bored.

And she was already offering herself.

For once, he decided to see what he could take without the chemical help.

"Your view," he said, standing, helping her up, his hand at her waist. "I'd love to see it."

They took a taxi. She leaned against him in the backseat, her head on his shoulder, her hand on his thigh. Dev calculated the risks. If she passed out in the taxi, he'd have to carry her and risk being seen. If she stayed awake, he'd have to keep pretending to be interested.

She stayed awake.

Her apartment was small, tidy, decorated with IKEA furniture and framed photos of family. The view was of another building's wall. Dev didn't care about the view.

She kissed him at the door, eager and clumsy. He kissed her back and guided her toward the bedroom. While he played the part of an interested lover, he noticed the laptop on the desk, the jewelry on the dresser and the phone beside it.

"Wait," she breathed, breaking the kiss. "I need to use the bathroom. Make yourself comfortable."

She disappeared. Dev moved to the bedroom, sat on the edge of the bed, removed his blazer. He could still drug her. The water was beside the bed, and the backup drops were still in his pocket.

But she returned, wearing only the red dress now, no underwear, and she was beautiful in her need, and Dev thought: Why not? Why not take what is offered, just this once?

They had sex. It was enthusiastic and athletic, but to Dev it was forgettable. He made sure she came, then finished himself. A few minutes later, she fell asleep with her head on his chest.

Dev lay awake beside her.

Neha was sleeping peacefully, one hand resting against his chest.

That should have pleased him.

Instead, he felt cheated.

She would wake in the morning remembering the night. She would remember choosing him. She might even tell someone she had enjoyed herself.

There would be nothing he could point to and say, I did that.

Dev hated that.

He reached for his phone.

The first photograph was ordinary. The second was taken after he moved the sheet. He stared at the screen and felt the familiar dissatisfaction. Still not enough. He wanted the version of the night that belonged entirely to him—the one she would never remember choosing.

He moved to the living room, found her purse, removed her wallet. Neha Sharma, address here, credit cards, photos of family. He photographed everything. He found her laptop, hacked her password (her birthday, predictable), accessed her email, her photos, her private messages.

He spent another hour looking through files and copying photos before he heard the bedroom door open.

"Rohan?"

He turned, smiled, the warm smile that hid everything. "Couldn't sleep. Looking for water."

She stood in the doorway, naked now, confused, beautiful. "Come back to bed."

"In a minute."

She approached, sat beside him on the sofa, saw the laptop open to her email. She looked from the laptop to the wallet. Her confusion turned to suspicion, then fear.

"What are you doing?"

Dev closed the laptop. "Checking work emails. Sorry. Habit."

"That's my laptop. My wallet is open." She stood, backing away. "Who are you?"

She knows something is wrong, he thought. Time to leave.

He stood, moved toward the door. "I think I should go. This was a mistake."

"Stop." She grabbed her phone. "I'm calling the police."

Dev moved faster than she expected. He had the phone from her hand, wrist in his grip, pressed her against the wall before she could scream.

"Neha," he said softly, pressing her against the wall. "Don't make this ugly. We had a nice time. Let's just end it."

"Let me go." Her voice was shaking. "Please. I won't tell anyone. Just go."

For a moment, he considered letting her go. She didn't know his real name or where he lived. Rohan the architect didn't exist.

But she had seen his face. She could describe him. She was afraid now, and afraid people were unpredictable.

He reached into his pocket, found the dropper. "Open your mouth, Neha."

"No—"

He squeezed her jaw, forced her mouth open and pushed three drops onto her tongue. She struggled, bit his finger, drew blood. He slapped her hard. She sagged as the chemical began to take effect, her eyes losing focus.

"That's better," he whispered, guiding her to the sofa, laying her down. "That's much better."

He waited ten minutes until she was fully under, then photographed her properly—naked, posed, vulnerable. He found her jewelry box, took a gold chain, his trophy. He checked her phone, deleted their Tinder conversation, blocked his number.

He left through the service stairs, descended to the street, walked to the main road, caught a taxi to Bandra.

In the backseat, he examined his finger where she'd bitten him. The blood had stopped. He licked it, tasted copper and victory.

Twenty-three folders. Twenty-three women who would never know the name Devendra Deshmukh. He waited for guilt the way other men waited for the bill. It never came. That absence still interested him more than the acts themselves. Every woman had been a problem. Every problem had a method.

He looked at the gold chain in his palm.

Twenty-three.

The number mattered more than the names.

Twenty-three.

Dev looked at the number again.

Then he put the phone away.

His phone buzzed.

Latha.

Coming over tonight? I have something to show you. New prototype.

Dev smiled. This time there was no need to pretend. Latha was his girlfriend, his alibi and his cover. She believed his late nights were work and his occasional injuries came from the gym.

On my way, he texted. Bring the wine. I have stories.

The taxi carried him from Andheri toward Bandra. Mumbai passed outside the window, bright in some places and dark in others. Dev touched the gold chain in his pocket.

He smiled.

He had no idea that someone was already watching him.

Dev looked out at Mumbai's lights.

He was already thinking about the next one.

"More," he whispered.

Then he smiled.