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The first time he saw me, I was in my bare-naked skin — every line, every scar, every pool of darkness, all the little details that I'd flutter to conceal otherwise, was his to take stock of. He told me later that I seemed to him a little broken, rather strange and somewhat lost. And that he was transfixed by me.
That was then… But now, as I counted seconds until all this magical facade that I'd come to believe in came crumbling down, I couldn't help but smirk to myself. I mean men become so tragically pathetic after physical intimacy! That fine speech...the candid confessions...It may well seem that all they really care about is that absurd performance of bouncing flesh, before they can heave out any real emotions from layers and layers of cold, hard skin.
I cringe at the thought of it.
"Six, five, four..." I see him stumble and grasp hold of the vintage ochre hat stand next to the door. He turns back to me with a quizzical look on his face. What's he looking for, I wonder? Remorse perhaps. I retorted with a steady, icy cold stare. I looked into his eyes. His murky hazel, deep-set eyes were where his characteristic guile came to life; they had such varying depths. Under the bridge, where our eyes met for the first time, his in a flash gave away a flood of emotions - bewilderment, loneliness, lust… I just knew that he was irrevocably captured in the abyss of my mysterious existence. Funny little pools these eyes are! Just moments ago, I had asked him a cliched question, one that all lovers ask each other at some point, “When did you fall in love with me?” He told me it was in my apartment, in the midst of a full-blown party, from across the room. He was watching me from a distance. My eyes seemed perfectly flat at that moment; but my mouth fidgeted and fumbled and opened ever so slightly to expose my cute, buck teeth. A silky fringe of hair danced around my spacey eyes, trying to veil the sarcasm that flowed through my irises. He was silently watching me when I averted my eyes from my friends to look at him. And wham! He felt my eyes fall back on earth. He looked at me as if he saw all the way through me. He said it was in that moment that he felt he had to continue looking at me until he could look no further, and get to that sacred haven where nobody had gotten to before. He had found his first intimate moment with me and it was right then that he knew he had fallen in love with me.
It was near twilight then when he gave me this mushy speech. He was towering above me in all his glory and magnificence, his skin radiating like a demigod in the mellow tint of the pink sun falling on him from the window behind him. Sun rays dispersed from his muscular, jaunty frame into a million luminescent crystals. Everything seemed so symbolic now. The window behind him, through which he lay eyes on me the first time, let the sun in everyday for a brief stop before it sank into oblivion. The window now appeared like the light at the end of a tunnel. Thinking of those moments of confused ecstasy right before I spiked his drink made looking at him now a bit unbearable. I shut my eyes for a brief moment. I opened them again to find him collapse on the floor, his chest heaving in even but difficult breaths. I knew all too well that he has fallen into a deep slumber. Oh darling, you're almost there. Sleep that has evaded you for decades is waiting for you around the corner, with its arms wide open, to envelope you into that inviting nothingness of her embrace.
I had a dream the other night. I was walking on a stranded beach, staring into the vastness of the big blue ahead. I am walking unceasingly, yet I'm walking with the gait of a purpose. Suddenly, a giant bird hovers past me. I have never seen that sort of bird before, flush with bright patches of grey and red, giant wings that rarely flapped. It looked like a monstrous burst of color across the sky. I looked on, completely entranced, when suddenly it vanished. The waves of the sea swallowed it alive. I woke up with an uneasy feeling. The kind when you feel engulfed in your own turf. I had to catch my breath. I took a walk outside in the cold night and when I returned, I fell into a fitful slumber on the couch. In a way, it feels like that dream. I'm just waiting for him to be swallowed. To dissolve into nothing. Waiting… But while I wait, I'll tell you how I got to this point.
I was in Grade 12, studying in Mussoorie at the time. On June 13th, 2005, a policeman came to our door. I remember the day vividly as it was my dad's birthday. My dad was at work at the time and we were planning his surprise party. A boy from my school was found dead in his car, in the parking lot of a garden, with mutilated genitalia, naked to his bone. It was a frosty morning but the chills that went down my spine weren't from the wintry air outside. My mother was crying. The policeman continued his interrogation despite that. He asked me when I had seen the boy last. I said it was in school, during the last period of the day. Math perhaps but I was too shocked to be sure if it was Math. He asked me when I had spoken to him last. I told him that he had called me to ask for Physics notes as he had skipped that class. I told the policeman about how he'd been missing classes and then involuntarily, I started sobbing. The policeman was nice. He told me it was just routine investigation and they'd call me to the police station if needed. My mother fussed over how emotionally frail I am and that I probably shouldn't be exposed to such horrific realities of life. The policeman assured us that it would be only to check facts and nothing more. He patted me on the shoulders as I continued to wail hysterically.
I moved to another city shortly after. My parents wouldn't have me in Mussoorie anyway. I came to Delhi to pursue my bachelors in arts and humanities. One night, the girls from my hostel organized a lights-out party in my room. We played truth, going around in a circle asking intimate questions. "How did you feel the first time you went all the way with a boy?" One of the girls blushed a deep red and said she's saving herself. Another said she felt uncomfortable and was in pain the morning after. Another said it felt magical and expounded on it at length through analogies that I had read in Lady Chatterley's Lover. When it was my turn, I said, "I felt like I was being watched." An eerie, awkward silence filled the air after that.
I didn't have any relationships in college. I was far too broody for boys. But during my internship at an ad agency, I caught the fancy of the art director. He invited me to dinner with his colleagues where they discussed at length the waywardness of one of the account executives with a perversity that made me lose my appetite. Later, he invited me over for drinks. I tried to excuse myself but he relentlessly coaxed me with vintage music records and wine. A strange sort of sickness shadowed over my soul and I accepted. At his apartment, I could smell that sickly metallic odor of his body's longing to come into contact with mine. Needles pricked my flesh when he took possession of me but I just lay there, stiff and inert. In utter disgust. I hastily dressed myself in awkward, abrupt movements focused on getting away from him, ebbing away into a horizon of my own. My internship finished a week later and I vowed to steer clear of him. I had completely forgotten about that night until one day when I got a phone call from my friend at the magazine office, who told me, in an evidently shaken voice, how the art director's body was recovered from his farm house. He was strangulated to death....his body was found in a cadaverous state on the verge of crumbling to dust.
I fought hard. I fought as hard as I could to shun that inner voice that told me to do unspeakable things. But it wasn't nearly good enough. The voice wanted what it wanted. The voice assured me it’d cover for me. I tried to stop them instead. When they were pressing their blubbery lips against mine, my soul screamed with anguish but I was too exhausted from fighting with my inner self to echo the screeches out loud. And all I could manage was, "Please. Don't." But my pleas didn't stop them either.
When I met Ray, I thought it'd be different. I saw him peering into my window from his apartment across the street but I pretended not to take note. Instead, I snuck into my bedroom, shut the lights and observed him carefully from a small gap through the heavy drapes in my room. He looked like the sort of person who doesn't expect anything in return. His murky eyes and jaunty face gave him a likeable aloofness. There was a dismal air about him and I felt my body knot in a way that I had never experienced before. I told myself, this time, I'll say when and I'll say how. In the next few days, I let his eyes follow me blindly whenever I was in the living room. I let my waist-length, wavy tresses down and wore my favorite grey tee with shorts that do complete justice to the curve of my haunches and my sweeping, delicate collarbone. I could feel his burning gaze on my skin but I ignored it. Whenever I got a chance, I went to my retreat to stalk him back. Like every other person, his mundane life had a pattern too. I figured he went for a run every day at six-thirty in the evening. So I wore a hooded cape and followed him. I saw him jog underneath the bridge to cross over to the runner's trail in the garden close-by.
The next day, I conspired to run into him under the bridge. Accidentally of course. We crossed paths. He looked at me in the eyes, started briefly. I looked back at him.
"Hi!", I said, on realizing that he had stopped short in his track with a resolve to speak, but was too flabbergasted to say anything.
"Hey! Where do I know you from? You live across the street, right?"
" Umm..I wouldn't know." I said, sounding a bit hollow. I gave him a half smile to lower the discouragement a couple of notches.
"Of course, you wouldn't. But I see you everyday. Don't hate me but what I'm about to say is going to sound pretty creepy."
"That's a pity." I turned to walk away from him.
"Hey, listen. Don't get me wrong. OK, can we start over? I'm Ray. I live across the street from you." He extended his hand and I took it. It was a warm hand.
"Bianca."
It started that evening. Whenever we were together, we went around in circles. We spoke for hours, reached a dead-end and then he said something that made me laugh. Laughter goes a long way. I stayed with him. I dressed for him. I looked forward to our movie dates. We held hands in the darkness and sometimes, touched each other's bare skin briefly. We kissed chastely and for the first time, it felt good. I felt alive. I invited him over to parties at my place. But I kept him at arm's length. He didn't mind. He liked the waiting, he said.
But today, when he visited me, I whiffed the raw, metallic odor of longing in his air. Oh no! I wasn't ready. Not today. "It's our day today." he whispered and drew me close to him. I shrank into his arms. And then I heard another voice say, "About time baby. You have to let him go." I was paralyzed with fear and weak in the knees. He carried me in his arms and lay me down on the living room floor. Our bodies met and I shrank further. He was too involved in his own pleasure to realize what it was doing to me. I tried to distract him by asking questions. He launched into a speech while holding that ridiculous, febrile position. He was in fits of laughter. I breathed him in for the last time, drew him in by every word and when he was done, I got up. Visibly shaken but walking tall and calm, I fetched a drink for him. He lay there, admiring my profile, simpering like an idiot. I got dressed and told him that I'd need to step out for some time. He got dressed too. We barely spoke. Finally, he sensed something was wrong. He asked me if I was fine. I pretended to be happy. I offered him juice. And he gulped it down all at once. He gave me a peck on my cheek and whispered, "I had wanted to do this ever since the first time I saw you." The hollow voice replied, "But I hadn't planned on doing this. You'll forgive me, won't you?"
He looked at me and smiled. He kissed me and said,"You beautiful lil weirdo! I'll see you later love."
The worst thing about doing something that feels wrong is the ringing silence that follows. I had to keep my thoughts running. I went to my bedroom and switched on the bedside lamp. I was very tired. I lit my first cigarette. His cigarette. I released a draft of smoke and found myself awakening to another sweet, dream-like surrender. From the fumes fleeing through from the gap in my bedroom drapes, I could see his balcony. "He should be home any time now", I thought to myself.
End
Image Source: Stories For Ghosts
Image Source: Stories For Ghosts
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