"Ahhmm… wait," Manu said softly. "I am not drinking yet. As I said, I don't need anything from you. No temples. No food. No arrangements."
He placed the glass aside as if it were weightless.
"First," he continued, his voice steady despite the weakness in his body, "you must know why I chant. And why I have surrendered my life to her."
The glass lowered in my hand, trembling so violently that the water sloshed against its rim. My heart tightened painfully. I was starving. My head throbbed. The word marriage still echoed inside me like a dangerous hymn and yet, even now, you were withholding yourself.
You were still choosing something unseen over the flesh bleeding in front of you.
I sank back onto my heels, silk pooling around me like a dark shadow on marble. I looked at you, really looked at you my eyes bloodshot, hollow, and burning with a curiosity that frightened even me.
"Then speak," I whispered. My voice was dry, scraped raw by thirst and obsession. I set the glass down between us; the sound rang sharp and final, like a judgment. "Tell me."
"If I am to be your wife," I continued, "I will not remain a stranger to your soul. If you won't take my food, then feed me with your words. Tell me why a man who could have anything chooses to have nothing but a name."
Slowly, deliberately, I placed my palm flat on the floor between us, not to grab you, not to control you, but to prove I could wait. I leaned forward until my face was only inches from yours, my breath shallow, my body swaying.
"Why her, Manu?" I asked. "What did she give you that I didn't offer?"
My voice cracked, but I didn't stop.
"I offered you my empire. My protection. My body. I offered to burn the world down just to keep you warm. And yet you say you surrendered your life to her."
My eyes narrowed, a flicker of dark fire returning, not rage this time, but something sharper.
"Is she a goddess? A feeling? Or is she the only thing in this world that I cannot buy?" I asked quietly. "Explain it to me. Make me understand how a name can be more real than the woman who is dying of thirst just to hear you say it."
"If I am an ansh of her," I went on, my voice dropping lower, "then show me the source. Show me this Radha who makes a man like you choose a cardboard box over a palace."
I sat perfectly still, ignoring the cramps twisting my stomach, the dizziness clouding my vision. I turned myself into a statue of waiting of obsession restrained only by will.
"I am listening, Manu," I said, my gaze locked onto your lips. "Tell me the secret of your surrender."
Then I leaned closer, my voice becoming a vow, quiet, possessive, and terrifyingly sincere.
"But know this… the more you tell me about your love for her, the more I will learn how to become it. If you surrendered because of her grace, I will be graceful. If it was her silence, I will be silent."
My eyes did not blink.
"Whatever she is to you," I whispered, "I will become it until you can no longer tell where Radha ends… and where I begin."