TRIGGER WARNING: Dark themes ahead, proceed with caution!
So much time has passed by since then. From that day forward, I’ve hopped on from moment to moment in a perpetual state of nothingness.
Unaware of the chaos, unaware of my sense of self.
For a fact, unaware of the date, and time, at this point, even the year.
I was strolling across the streets today when I saw this man engrossed, almost hypnotized, standing so close to the wall, it was outright creepy. Casually, I went closer to him to see what was wrong only to find out he was reading his horoscope in one of those old calendars. The ones that claimed the fate of your day, and required you to tear it to move to another day as though people could really crush and crumble the happenings of their past in the dustbin.
That’s when I happened to come across the date.
21st September.
As I sit here in this room gracefully, wrapped in my favourite saree, wearing red lipstick that doesn’t smudge, the air filling up with the fragrance of the beautiful jasmine flowers in my head, I can’t help but wonder how ten years have slipped by.
Did I mention that I’m celebrating my 10th anniversary today?
The day I was traded away to a stranger for money by someone very dear who hid behind the mask of trust. The first time he raped me, I was too young to articulate what was happening. But for all I knew, it was a long and agonizing battle that never seemed to end. It terribly hurt as though something that didn’t fit into my being was inserted, again and again, harder and harder, until parts of me had to get wounded and unrepairable break, oozing out as blood, to make space for it to fit in.
The world dropped dead as I cried out for help.
But now, I’ve lost count. After all, it has been 10 years.
I learned to shed a layer of my skin like a snake every time this happened.
Men after men, I got accustomed to it.
Initially, forced. Eventually, out of choice.
You know how the water in the pool is bone-chilling but once you step into it, you get used to its temperature and begin to swim.
Something like that.
Off late, there is a sudden increase in distress brimming through every cell in my body. I kept googling painless ways to die. Psychologists call this the “Anniversary effect”.
But what do I know?
I almost feel like this every other day. The only difference is that it just keeps getting more worse.
Anyway, I was told that apparently sex is supposed to feel different with different people, that everybody had something very unique to offer. An exclusive style with passionate moves that made them special, that made them stand apart.
I don’t know about that though.
Yes, everybody had a fetish of their own, however, my internal response remained as hollow as a drum. I made a noise or two, played to their beats, and that’s that.
Until, until, until, Vinay walked into my room hesitant.
It almost feels like we are the two sides of the same coin. Ah, the universe finally working its way to bring together two people aligned on the same energies and frequencies. But before your thoughts race ahead, Vinay and I have never slept together. We just go about sailing on the boat of melancholy waking up to new horizons and yet there’s an unprecedented intimate connection that I feel with him.
He was always charged double the rate because he wanted to speak and not spoon. When I kissed him, he retracted and I must admit that it hurt my ego. Then, he sobbed and sobbed and sobbed and eventually left. But he never failed to show up at my door regularly – that pretty nerd with eyes that are remarkably poignant, and yet absolutely comforting. While the first three times we met, were spent in terrifying silence, the fourth time he confessed that he was a “writer-sorts” and conversed about the most random of things.
One moment, he spoke so dearly of a character he was writing about, and the next about how deep-voiced men tend to have lower concentrations of sperm in their ejaculate.
“So what’s your name?”, he finally asked after a long time.
“Ramya”
“Really?”
“So I was told”
“You know you should change your name like an actor has a screen name, a writer has a pen name, a sex worker should have a street name. You should change your name to Rani. You feel like a Rani, not a Ramya.”
“Whatever.”, I replied rolling my eyes.
“So, who are you Rani?”, he questioned, his face full of curiosity.
When people ask who you are, all they want to know is your fair share of trauma in the world and to writers like him, everything and everybody in the end is just a piece of content.
“I don’t want to talk about it”
“Everybody desires you, what do you desire Rani?”, he questioned.
“Look. You can talk all you want but don’t try to read me”, I snapped at him.
Since that time, he knocks, we lie on our bed, and he endlessly blurts out the things in his heart and mind. I deeply recognize his loneliness and although I’ve developed a soft corner for him, I cannot afford to let him in.
Rather, I don’t know how to.
From his poop to space, he’s covered every topic in the universe to try to get me talking. It indeed is great to have someone around, but I never folded, never gave in, up until he said these words.
“We should sleep together”.
So, I wrapped myself in my favourite saree, put on a red lipstick that doesn’t smudge, and sat gracefully in the room, waiting for him while the air filled up with the fragrance of the beautiful jasmine flowers in my head.
And then, we did.
We finally slept together.
Only, it was forever.