New story: Roll number 317

This post contains a portion of my new story.

It shows 03:24 a.m. on my laptop.

One would wonder why I am awake at this ungodly hour. I have been awake since 1:30 a.m. Tossing and turning, trying to put my turbulent thoughts to rest. My mind refuses to cooperate today. Today, of all days.

It is the beginning of navratri today. In some time, I must be wide awake to usher the goddess into my humble home and perform stringent rituals to propitiate her. Is the goddess listening to me? Or is she not aware of my mental turbulence?

I spent three hours thinking about him. Memories hit me like an avalanche on a high altitude mountainous slope. I slid, slowly, softly into its fold. It engulfed my mind then my whole being in its wake. His thoughts came in bursts. I shed a tear or two. I felt ashamed later. Is it right? No no, the question here is not about whether it is right or wrong, the question is why. Why? Why me? Why today, why after all these years?

Isn’t it always like this? I asked my mind, for the nine hundred and ninety nineth time, why me? Whats with the number, you would ask. It is just a random number, something that I thought of just now. Sitting with my laptop and typing furiously. Fury, anger, and extreme sadness combined with desolation is what I am feeling right now. I am torn between a desire to run into his arms and never let him go and to take a sharp dagger and enter it in his abdominal cavity with ease, softly turn it and then take it out. Repeat. Turn. Repeat.

There will come a moment when the blood will begin to clot. I will stop then.

I was fine till I came home. I watched a silly movie on the TV. Then my phone decided to die. That was after my friend decided to end the call we were on, discussing the upcoming rather planned reunion in a far off town where we both grew up, Chandrapur.

Well, I didn’t technically grow up there. Like many people, I grew up in many places. Well, it does sound a tad confusing. So, while I was growing up, I and my family, primarily Ma and Pa moved to different places. So, when I was in Chandrapur, I met my friend with whom I decided to yak for like an hour or so. She was curious to know if I would make the trip. I wasn’t sure. We chatted about many things, including him. The Him. So, let me quickly delve into the story behind this Him. I did not want to mention him in our conversation. She steered our conversation there. Unsafe waters. For me always. I become a bit odd whenever I am forced to think of him.

This is how it usually happens. It is as if everything becomes slo mo and I am a teenager again. I can even recall the smell of his saliva after all these years. So many years. In that rickety rickshaw, on the torn backseat, I could smell him, his hurriedly slathered aftershave and the smell of his saliva. Unlike many men, he didn’t smell. Maybe he made it a point not to. God knows. It still lingers somewhere in the deep dark recesses of my mind. The feel of his luscious lips and the sudden flick of his tongue. Unsure but hurried. Full of longing and unbridled passion.

I pushed all these thoughts to the back of my mind and continued the conversation with my friend. She was merrily describing the way her husband made hurried love and snored afterwards. The muted giggles and the reticent sigh reminiscent of prolonged foreplays in the aftermath of the institutionalisation of two souls forever and forever made our hurried conversation a bit saucy.

While my own ticker raced with its single-point mandate, I forced my mind to evoke the all pervasive knowledge of reigning in such runaway desires. I could smell him like it had happened a moment ago. It was years ago. It was exactly twenty two years. I was eighteen and he nineteen.

I took out the packet hidden for such days and licked the smooth end. Then with a practiced flick, I puffed a bit lighting the end, just enough. To my satisfaction, the ciggie didn’t give up on me. Not yet. After downing three, I called it a night. It was not enough. My mind was in full turmoil mode. I took out the bottle of wine from the fridge and poured myself a little bit. Just for the buzz, I reminded myself. I needed to forget myself. I needed to forget him. Forget the memory. Erase it if I ever could. Damn! It was navratri and I had a puja to do in the morning.

Desire and pain coexist and cohabit whenever my thoughts veer towards him. The rawness of the jolt he had given was so sharp that I could feel the blood trickle slowly down my abdomen. It took its time, soaking my dress, my navel, and my legs. The smell of blood did not do anything to the smell of his saliva. It remained. Coexistence, I understood the meaning, the real meaning of this word then.

My mind pulled out more memories, to my absolute horror. The way his hands had moved over my boobs, urgent, lust-filled, and full-blooded. The way he had urgently pushed his fingers into my dress and tried to push his limbs into me, I still recall and shudder. The memory is fresh. If I reach out, I can touch them, the nineteen-year old him and the eighteen-year old me, lost totally in the churning passion usually reserved for the firsts. First kiss, first fuck, you get the picture.    

At eighteen, I surrendered my heart and soul to him. Satish Ramaswamy, roll number 317. I became, unbeknownst to him, his slave. He could have commanded me to kill, I would have. Single-minded obsession and desperate need to be in his arms forever and forever was my only goal. I gave up my thinking ability and followed him around the huge campus like a lost puppy. Hushed tones and sarcasms fell on deaf ears.

Cut to the present. Jolted out of my reverie, I recalled why I was having the late night inter-state conversation with my bosom friend, Sushma. She groaned when her husband called out to her. The conversation disrupted, I stepped out onto my tiny balcony for some fresh air. The very thought of him made me hyperventilate. My body reacted in a way I had forgotten it could just by a mere memory of his smell. The way he brought out the woman in me, no one ever could. A portion of me died sometime in 1999 when he chose to leave.