While they're working in the garment shop, Mala turns to Jesmin and says her boyfriend Dulal wants to marry them. Mala is the best girl in the shop, which saved her from being fired after she joined the strike to honor her brother who died in a factory collapse.

Two days later Dulal wants to marry the two of them plus Ruby, another girl in the shop. Ruby and Jesmin didn't believe Mala, saying there was no way a man working in an air-conditioned shop would want a garment girl, but low and behold, the three were married.

Jesmin left her village for the garment job after what happened in the punishing hut, her mother's dreams of a respectable marriage for her daughter crushed. She was in love with her schoolteacher, Amin, and Amin's wife went to the Salish to order her punishment. She was denegrated in the hut, Amin himself insulting her naked body.

Jesmin lives temporarily with her cousin and cousin's daughter. She sees marriage as a fix to her problems, a way out. Dulal sleeps with each girl in turn. He cannot get it up with Mala or Jesmin. Mala, it transpires, had paid him to be with her, and promised him the other girls could fix what she could not. She is devastated to hear that Jesmin failed as well. But Ruby emerges triumphant. Jesmin is left alone, with her body closed off to all but herself.