Lady in a Pink Saree

I always wondered about the secrets—the veritable skeletons in closets, the secrets hidden in the hidden depth of cupboards, the priest-holes behind the false panels—but I never even imagined to end up possessing one such secret. My secret lived and thrived in a trunk, a masterpiece made which looked regular but held the secret safe inside.

I heard the rattling, the knocking of the walls, and I knew it was time to open the lock. Not a feat if one thinks about it, but indeed a feat with the securities. A finger-print, an eye scan, and thought scan. I recollected the time it was asking me to recognize—the time when I had met my secret—the sun, the beach, the lamp, the wishes, and a lie to my best friend about her crush. That is all it took. I closed my eyes and pictured the rolling waves. I let the sands of time take me back to those sands of the beach. I heard the words of Annie again, “Do you think I should go for Sunny? He wants to go beyond the first base. But I’m afraid. What if he is a womanizer?” I felt the green tendrils entering into me, twisting my inners slowly. I hear my own lie rolling off my tongue, “It’s too soon to take a chance. Maybe you should test him first; I’ve heard a few rumours about him abusing his good looks and academic records.”

The guilt, the shame, the exhilaration is back again, and the trunk opens.

“Good Evening, Sister. I am so hungry that I could eat millions of pounds and not wonder,” the green tendrils seem to be speaking as they slowly morph into a face of a monster and sniffed me. I opened my mouth and allowed the monster to kiss me, and it didn’t hesitate. My eyes closed in ecstasy, and I felt my body turning green inch by inch. The sigh of the green monster echoes in my mind, and so does the hunger.  A part of me revolted to such blatant acquisition, but over the period of time, that part had lost its power to formulate the words or to scream. It sobbed, but the green monster grinned at her. “A few more minutes, “ it whispered, “I will leave you soon enough”.

We are prowling now, the latest joint is a club. The couples were gyrating and jumping to the latest music of Honey Singh. The monster listened to the lyrics and roared Perfecto! as if it came from hybrid of the Spain and India. The lyrics resonated with the feeling of jealousy over lovers. We scanned the crowd. The girl in the mini-skirt looked desperate enough to be insecure, but she was totally sloshed to be even bothered about her boyfriend. The threesome deal looked still premature to be insecure or jealous over anything. The couple at the barstool, the lady in the pink spaghetti, the boy who looked too young for the bar, and… “There she is—the one in the pink, old enough to be her boyfriends’ mom, saggy face and boobs. If not for push-up bra, she might not look half attractive. And see,” the monster whispers in my mind as if we were still two different identities, “she is fiddling with her ring as her boyfriend talks to the young bartender. She is ripe. Insecure, ready to be possessed, already halfway through the emotion of jealousy.”

We move towards the target, slowly. I end up putting an extra swing in my hip. My low cut dress swished around my thighs. A glass in my hand, I put myself between the lady and her boyfriend.

“Hi Handsome.” I winked towards him. He gave me a tentative smile. His expression clearly said that he thought me a drunk. He tried to get up, but my hand curl up on his thigh.

“Don’t you remember me?”

He shook his head and looked toward the lady who was now looking at me with a different eye.

“We spent the night together. I thought it was orgasmic, but I never thought you would forget me,” we murmur. The silent part of me is now whimpering inside as the tendrils start moving away towards the lady in pink saree.

She whispers, “Were you with her last night? Was that why you cancelled our date?”

Before he could formulate a word, we turn towards the lady, “Oh. Were you his date? I’m so sorry. He had told me how you tend to get insecure. I should have been more careful. The pride does become fragile with age.”

“The fuck?” the lady asks, her eyes narrowed in consternation.

We continue, “The fuck was spectacular. Orgasmic, as I said.”

The lady took a deep breath, and with that breath, inch by inch, her body turned green. The silent part of me whimpered again as another tendril wrapped itself tightly around me, reminding me that I would never be free. I just hoped that the lady in the pink saree could make the right decision and be free.