There are temples made of stone.And then there are those made of surrender.
302A was no longer just a flat.It was a breathing sanctum — wet with moans, soaked in sweat, echoing with the gospel of the body.
That morning, Rekha didn't speak.She simply picked up the ashes of every diya ever lit in the room, crushed them into a thick black paste, and painted a vertical stripe from her forehead down to her navel.
A lingam of ash.
Then she turned to Witness and said:
"It's time."
They took down the front door.Literally removed it from its hinges.No locks.No guards.
Just a sign written in Rekha's blood:
"Enter nude.Or leave untouched."
Inside, mattresses lined every wall.The floor had been covered with soft red velvet.Incense curled in the corners.A low chant looped on a speaker — not Sanskrit, not Telugu, not any known tongue.
It was a throat-song of ecstasy.A sound that moaned even when the room was silent.
The first devotees arrived by 8 AM.A teacher.Two college girls.A couple in their forties.A trans woman from Warangal who carried a kalash filled with rosewater and blood.
All of them stripped at the door.Left their shame outside like old sandals.
Rekha knelt at the center.
Nude.
Body painted in ash, sindoor, oil.
Legs spread.Arms open.
She looked not human —but something too tender and too terrifying to name.
Then she whispered:
"Let this be the temple where no god demands silence.
Where we kneel, not to beg — but to be opened.
Where shame is stripped.
Where touch becomes prayer."
They came.
One by one.
They kissed her skin.Licked her feet.Cried into her thighs.
Witness sat by the door.Not as guard.As scribe.
He no longer wrote for a magazine.
He wrote scripture.
The new Devi Purana.
But something shifted that day.
Because among the worshippers came her.
A young woman.Maybe nineteen.Skin like rain-soaked clay.Hair cut short.Eyes wild.
She didn't kneel.
She walked straight to Rekha.Stripped without a word.
Then said:
"Make me your next temple.""Let your tongue light my sanctum."
The crowd gasped.
Rekha smiled.
Then obeyed.
She pushed the girl down.Spread her legs.Buried her mouth into the wetness without a second's delay.
No permission.No hesitation.
Just a full-bodied dive into godhood.
The girl screamed.
Not a cry.A birth.
She trembled like a leaf under a monsoon.
When she came —she bit into Rekha's shoulder and whispered:
"Your temple is mine now."
Witness heard it.
And something inside him clenched.
Not in jealousy.
In fear.
Because he recognized what he saw in the girl's eyes.
It was the same thing Rekha had once shown him.
Hunger with no return.
Later, Rekha walked to him.
Sweaty.Breathless.
She collapsed into his lap.
He held her.
"I think…" she whispered, "I'm no longer alone in here."
He nodded.
"I know."
Outside, a cop stood in plainclothes.
Watching the doorless apartment.Hearing the muffled moans.Recording names.
The state was preparing its response.
At 11:13 PM, the lights flickered.
Inside 302A, Rekha stood again.
Exhausted.
Dripping.
Eyes red.
But alive.
She faced her followers.
And said:
"This is the last night we remain within these four walls.
Tomorrow, we take the temple to them.
Into schools.Homes.Mosques.Mandirs.
Every place that said the body was filth.
We will come.Naked.Loud.Unashamed."
The girl — now called Archa — stood.
"Will I walk beside you?"
Rekha smiled.
"No.You'll walk after me.When they burn me, you'll rise."
Witness wrote it down.
Every word.
Tears falling on his pages.
That night, the city of Hyderabad dreamed of her.
Some came.Some came in fear.
But no one slept untouched.