Satiation

I rub and rub my dense eyebrow with my right index finger, grab a single hair, then tear it off and taste it with my tongue, biting and spitting it into tiny pieces. Whenever I think of Nagalingam, I have started doing such strange things.

Rolling rice beads into green leaves and eating them, waking up in the middle of the night and killing the lice in my daughter’s head, showering for hours with my eyes open – all these things which I did without anyone’s knowledge gave me some strange sense of solace despite a growing disgust at Nagalingam’s interference.

Whenever I drink with him, he is amused by my impulse to bite into something sweet, by my ability to simultaneously taste the syrupy, fleshy petals of the jackfruit with the bitterness of alcohol. That I used to call Suriyakumar ‘Soori’ but do not refer to Nagalingam by a nickname angers him greatly. He shows that anger by pointing out and making fun of my habit of eating cake or gnawing on jackfruit with alcohol.

I had accepted Nagalingam with the condition that he should not bring up any memory of my first marriage or of Soori’s untimely death. The same way, I never ask anything about his wife Madhini’s elopement. Even when we are drunk and blathering away all our secrets, we never talk about our past lives.

Those days with Soori, followed now by these with Nagalingam, sometimes I have to wonder whether it is I who don’t know how to live properly. For some reason, I have no desire to refer to him by a nickname, and he knows it. Besides, he can probably infer that I feel strange about everything related to him. Just like I do, I assume he compares me to Madhini.

Without a trace of attachment, I have wrapped myself with this darkness, and to make space for my untainted love inside this darkness seems like a joke at times, but we cannot seem to cross the barriers of lust so easily. Like a demon, he is focused on consuming me. With the awareness that I am merely a piece of meat to him, I too eat him up. We show his revenge on Madhini and my inexhaustible longing for Soori on each other’s bodies. As the suitable time for this, we choose certain drunken nights.

Addiction is a freedom. It is a momentary liberation. In fact, it is a secret medicine to transcend senses and lose myself, a chance to dump all my frustrations on Nagalingam.

‘To give a wife so much to drink! Are you a madman?’

He laughs mockingly. Makes my body lean on his and roams with his fingers. One thousand leeches are let loose inside my clothes. I feel a great disgust.

‘Saniyane, are you even letting me say anything?’ I push him away. My words keep crossing lines.

‘What is there to talk?’

‘There is a lot actually … Can you leave me be a little?’

‘What now? Is someone keeping you tied up?’

‘Tied up? Have you ever let me sleep in peace? How is it that you need this nonsense every time?’

‘Ei … Watch your words or else…’

‘Or else what … Tell me what else?’

Out of spite, I get ready for a fight. But he isn’t angry enough. Instead, he is intertwined with me and starts to blabber. In the pretence of taking and eating his share, he has advanced, slowly, slowly.

About a lust long simmered and soaked in love, he knows nothing. All these gentle feelings and unbitted love that fills me, he doesn’t carry the vessel that can hold them. He only knows how to frantically gulp down the allure of a woman’s body along with his alcohol. I am always thinking of how to summon the substance that can quench his never-ending thirst.

Unlike any other day, suddenly I start crying thinking about Madhini. Wondering why she had run away, I cry out while slamming my hand on the table.

He asks why. Without expecting an answer, he grabs me even tighter. In a haze and with a lack of courage to refuse him, I observe him as if I am a third person standing on the side.

Like an anxious hunter taken by anger and haste and trepidation, he has transformed into a state that cannot accept even the smallest hurdle. When he spreads over me with the pretence of a roar, with the eagerness to make me his, to swallow me whole without an interval, just then, I look inward to inhabit and find my own self.

I try to turn him over with my whole strength. But he operates with the ferocity of a wild elephant. He bites my neck my skin my earlobe determined to leave the mark of his teeth. Crying out in pain, I push away his shoulders. Holding down both my hands with one of his, he murmurs some obscenity into my ear. Laughs while dampening my body with saliva. In front of his strength, I am crushed like a small flower. I struggle to breathe. Until he releases his hold himself, I lie there in a daze.

As if waking from a swoon, I move myself slightly. His breathing steady, barely moving like a crocodile, he is in deep slumber. I want to cry. Both kids are fast asleep. The elder one lays there in Soori’s image. ‘Soori,’ I whisper soundlessly, let out a cry and rest my breath. Search the younger one’s face for any traces of Nagalingam. Wishing there is none, I embrace my child and kiss his face.

Maybe I am just not able to acquaint myself with the experience of a man, but even after being intimate with two? There is no doubt that among God’s creations men are strange creatures. He turns over and starts snoring. I continue to stare at his movements. Again and again, he only reminds me of a wicked, wild animal.

My heart brims like a pit overflowing with water after a heavy rain, and I struggle to contain its rupture. To hide the shame of my defeat after wrestling with a man’s body, I embrace and cover myself with sleep.

The fire within a woman’s body that unravels lust at the edge of endless love, her allure, the extension of her kindness – when a man is unworthy to face these, she becomes a demoness possessed with rage. She hesitates to retain the state that gives and receives the reality of a great truth.

The man who cannot witness the delicacies of her body that secretes in secrecy, he is quite unlucky. The ones who do not know how to intertwine and burn in the fire that ignites around her as she is so taken by love, the ones who do not know how to witness her lust and accept that love, are mere fools.

Soori wasn’t too bad. Nagalingam is the biggest fool. The tactics to conquer me and make me his are missed by him. He has lost the need for my love. His efforts to establish his masculinity through tactless savagery are meaningless, but he doesn’t know that. He is merely an idiot, who roams around proud of his ability to swallow up a woman’s body every day.

How else do I mitigate this anger? I vent to my friend at the office. As usual, she takes on her role as my confidante.

‘Managing two rental houses, an insurance job – your  husband really doesn’t do much. Now tell me, what else does he have to do?’

‘Still, twice a day?’

‘Are you also going to run away like Madhini?’

Although she asks playfully, I wonder if Madhini had actually run away unable to withstand this.

‘He doesn’t let me be even during my periods!’

‘Do you think he has some illness?’

It is exhausting to even talk about this.

‘That’s why I am saying, let’s go and tell the police,’ she says.

‘Do you want the whole town to say, “She killed her first husband and is now dragging this one to the road?” Look, even my own family won’t believe me.’

‘How much will you take, in fear of all this?’

‘Let the kids grow up a little. You go back to work, I am just rambling away,’ I say. ‘What will I do with the kids if I leave him as well? Stand in the middle of the road?’

She swears at me.

‘I want to kill him with my own hands. If you are just going to be useless about this, why are you talking to me?’ she raises her voice.

I tear out an eyebrow hair and roll it with my tongue. I bite it into small pieces and spit the pieces out one by one.

If he is of this earth, then I am of Mars; we are trapped in two different planets. Our time together is extending as the ugly consequence of binding two mismatched contradictions.

Like a mountain snake yearning to swallow me up whole, he rolls over every day. Like a drugged prey captive to fear, I lie there. As a punishment for his sins of ripping off and eating my flesh at night, I try to wield ignorance like a weapon during the day. Both of us tremble with the need to injure each other. We are unable to stop this trembling that has filled our entire bodies and spread through the cracks of our hidden veins.

Thinking about him in the office has somehow tickled his nose. My phone blinks and blinks and shuts off. A message from him. Some repeated calls.

The need to defeat him at least once! I calmly ignore his call.  Now his anger should boil. Let it be, let him be angry some more.

He calls again. I ignore it. Again, and again. I continue to ignore them. He calls tirelessly. I once again cut the call and smile to myself. Two more calls and I cut them without hesitation. A brief pause. There is a slight excitement. He must be surprised. I usually don’t cut his calls. Now he must be thinking of Madhini. I assume he is a little scared. Maybe he is really scared. It feels as if the blood smell of a hunted animal is leaking into my nose. I delight in it. Extend and stretch my arms and crack my knuckles. Caress and arrange my eyebrows. This is the fleeting victory of the rabbit that tricked the hungry lion and pushed him into the well.

I feel like celebrating myself.

‘Tea?’

I ask my friend. She glances away. Wanting to preserve my adrenaline, I order tea at the canteen. Relish the sweetness of the tea. An endless number of messages and calls keep filling up my phone.

‘Brother, an ice cream.’

He looks at me doubtfully. ‘Ice cream with tea?’

‘Bring it, come on. Let’s eat,’ I cry out cheerfully.

Ten more minutes until four. I can assume what questions might come up in the war of words at our next meeting. Cooling my insides with the ice cream, I select and calculate the right answers one by one.

The fear emerging at the start of a running race doesn’t show up during the competition. My run will be halted midway; there is no doubt. But still I dare to run. The residue of derision is still pasted to my face. Ready for anything, I enter.

He sits there without any lights on. He hasn’t picked up the kids from school. He looks prepared, he looks like a battle sword ready to strike. The arrogance that had taken over me all this while has slowly started to melt away. Even the smallest effort to face him alone feels like the grandest scheme.

His uncharacteristic calmness shakes my insides. I fear the coming night. How do I speak … Where to start? This silence is very heavy. Pacing back and forth, I attempt to recognise the signs of his face. He straightens for a moment. I swear I cannot gauge the feeling evoked by his mannerisms. I become anxious again. How are my decisions so weak? I feel ashamed of my weak resolve. Like a broken glass stabbing and ripping again and again, his stare cuts me.

‘Are you so brave now?’

A fire flashes and dances in his voice. All the prepared answers vaporize and vanish in front of my eyes. I channel the bravery I had tightly grabbed to myself to stop the tears. My fearful heart urges me to slip away from him. A beat passes without an answer. He looks at me.

‘So much audacity, you whore! Watch it or I’ll trample you down. I am letting you be because you are a woman. If not, I would have killed and buried you in this very spot.’

He speaks pointing his index finger. Grinding his teeth. Bending down and rubbing his thighs, he keeps blabbering more things. In between, he keeps pronouncing me a whore. Gets up and drinks water. Waits for a while and asks calmly, ‘why didn’t you pick up the phone?’ The forcefulness of his voice has mellowed a little.

‘Meeting,’ I say.

‘Couldn’t you have sent a message?’

I forget the answers I had thought of. I try to casually change the direction of the story.

‘Didn’t pick up the kids?’

‘Let them be with Amma, I want to be alone with you.’

What does he plan to do? Whatever it is, don’t slack off, please don’t slack off, be yourself. If it becomes extreme, maybe say, ‘I will also run away like her.’ Like a freshly sharpened knife’s tip, let it stab and twist his insides.

Until he seizes me from behind, I don’t register his presence. Without even giving the chance for me to turn and look he presses me against the wall and sticks to my body with the haste of a rutting bull and breathes into my neck.

Do I push away? Or submit? Or declare that I too will run away like Madhini? Scream at him that he’s a shameless dog?

‘Not now … I want to shower and change.’ I try to get away from his grip.

‘No … now … just like this.’

Not giving me a chance to speak he grabs my face hard with one hand, runs his other hand over my lower stomach and pulls at my saree. Pushes me onto the floor and conquers me with his entire weight. Acts as if I can easily accept the scratches and bite wounds of fast mating as a natural consequence.

A rushed coupling. A punishment for my sins.

He lays on the floor with his hands outstretched. The arrogance of victory shines in his eyes. Like a street dog hit by a car, I remain there, unmoving. In the flash of a moment, I suddenly collect my clothes, rush into the bathroom and lock the door. Start the shower and stand there with my eyes open letting the top of my head go cold. Water collides with my body’s bruises, I caress them as I stand there naked, spitting at my own ignorance and base desires. I don’t have a single thought on how to redirect my anger towards him. Crying out, with my nails I tear out and drag the skin of my neck.

That mouth that keeps pronouncing me a whore, I want to rip it to pieces. I wonder what the opposite of the word is. Those who associate with whores take rebirth as a crow or a red dog or a pig or a silk cotton tree, I’ve heard of that somewhere.

I imagine Nagalingam will be born as a crow or a red dog. To make that imagination a reality, there needs to be another entity, another self. I determine my body’s own seamless integration with that strange self. Suddenly I also become that figure … then gaze and admire the enchantment of my own body. At that moment, I am overcome by the desire to find the self that I have lost somewhere.

Just like that, I station the self across from me, close my intoxicated eyes and wantingly reach out for it … no, him. Poke at the snuffed fire blooming with ashes, causing it to reignite and thrill at the warmth emanating from the large flames. I hesitate to open my eyes. The moment needs to sustain, and for the moment to sustain, there needs to be more darkness. The continuous water drops touch me, gently caress my body like a thousand fingers. Like a hunched over shameplant slowly, slowly, unfurling its leaves, every single part of my love comes alive.