Serrated Subtlety

She could hear her own footsteps clicking through the din enveloping her, unknown faces and throbbing music. Or maybe all she could feel was the pressure that was exerted on her heel every time the stilettos were placed firmly on the smooth glassy floor beneath her. The fascination of a cracked glass floor, with the jaggedly patterns emanating from the sharp pointed heels of her stilettos, continued to amuse her.

She did not feel lost anymore. The disco balls with its minuscule pieces of reflecting light dispersed the electric colors of the night in random symmetry. She felt the sound being reflected off the sweaty people on the dance floor, bathed in monochromes of royal blue and blood red. She felt the cheek muscles tauten as a half smile crept her features. The discernable need not to hear or to be heard. The bliss of ignorance settled slowly, but surely over her.

She walked out. She walked out of a life she had known the intricacies of and which she assumed held the comforts of a stale yet definite future. She walked out of the arms of the man she had loved and made love to in the unearthly hours of the still night and the startling hours of the chaotic days. She walked out of the memories that still nestled in the warmth of her heart and whose resonance is unfailingly felt through the cells of her ever changing body. She walked out of the room, with the silence and a glass of whiskey in her hands.

The cold night air stung her face to a pretty shade of pink.

I sat on the edge of the grassy steps that lined the porch on the far west side. The smoke mingled with the cold night air as it travelled through the smooth passage of my nostrils. The sound of her heels, in the quiet solitude of the open porch, broke the stoic silence I was reveling in.

She stood leaning against one of the pillars with the mesmerizing carvings on it, a deception of antiquity. My gaze descended on the tips of her sea green stilettos, and travelled upwards through the long tough muscles of her claves. The snug midnight black dress she wore skimmed up against her thigh as she put her left foot forward, crossing her legs, in an attempt to make herself more comfortable. The electricity of the movement of fabric and her smooth skin was palpable.

And then my eyes found her neck. Her porcelain, creamy, long, swan-like neck. The sharp curve where her chin ended and her neck began to the depths of their closure between her two lovely handful of breasts. The veins that did not rear their heads but merged in the sheath of her skin. The bones that proudly flaunted their existence, in a attempt to claim for the beauty it was encased in. I stared. Stared at the way her neck found her shoulders in a perfect strutting curve. The dress that clung ever so slightly at the ends of her bare shoulders before it plunged to be united again in her now sweaty cleavage.

She turned to look at me.

I smiled the smile that always brought me luck.

She smiled feebly, not her best smile I presumed.

I stood up. Crushed the cigarette butt with the foot of my white peep-toes. Adjusted the hem of my olive green dress. Ran my fingers through my long brown tousled hair. And walked purposefully towards her.

She did not seem to welcome my presence. Nor did she display her displeasure.

I smiled more eagerly than I should have.

She complimented on my dusky legs. I was taken aback. Men liked chocolate skin. Fair women tend to be prejudiced.

I complimented on her beautiful dress. Women begin conversations by erecting frail pedestals.

The conversation soon swayed towards the lives we led, after the niceties were over. The cold purity of the night air in the deserted porch presented an opportunity to let both of us breathe and not just stifle our presence. She talked mostly. All I could do, apart from making it apparent that I listened to her, was to gaze at the features of her neck. From so close quarters.

She continually kept on adjusting her dress at the shoulders. I put a reassuring arm around her to convince her of the futility of the actions. Letting go seemed to be the theme of the night.

I noticed her need for stretching out. And mine too. Five inch heels are not your wonder drug in the midst of a heartbreaking conversation. So we moved to the grass cut steps. The castigating sandals lay in a heap next to us as we stretched our aching calf muscles. As she made round motions with her toes. As her feet lay well rested in the soft dewy grass.

The party was starting to break up. People stumbled out in a state of utter derision. Or in droves of a mockery of their unfulfilled lives.

The look of utter helplessness on her face was luminous even in the dark. The fidgety movement of her feet were a further testament. I casually asked her if she would like to leave.

She said yes. Without even knowing if I had a car or a place to crash in. The desperateness of her acquiescence made things easier.

No music played on the stereo as I drove through the quiet yet haunted streets of a city that pretends to sleep. She looked listlessly out of the window, trying to find a foothold in this maze of electric lights and undeciphered emotions.

The lock clicked and I turned to her. She smiled with renewed energy and walked inside my modest studio.

The kitchen was clean. The bed was made. A few of my books were lying around. The laptop was still hibernating. The only glitch was the cup of half-drunk stale tea from the previous morning.

She walked into the bathroom. I followed.

She stood in front of my huge mirror that reflects back till your waistline. Her hands were resting on the edge of the wash basin stands. For support or not, I’m yet to fathom.

I looked at her. Her face in the pale yellow light that hung above the mirror that reflected her image to me, as I stood leaning against the bathroom door. And how it threw shadows over her immaculate neck.

How a single horizontal slit would make it even more painfully beautiful. The creaminess of her skin that forms a perfect background for thick red blood to slowly drip down.

And I twisted the blade slightly between my fingers.

The Nun With The Shaved Cunt

I bit my tongue. That was the involuntary action that I could muster in the little fraction of the second when the voice that made its way through the tunnels of my left ear sent my nerves into a murderous frenzy. It left behind a gentle tingling sensation on the tips of my fingers.

The voice of that certain Mr. X (for reasons of conditional anonymity) had certainly produced no such effect before. And highly unlikely to stimulate such extravagant demonstration of feelings in the future either. The careless juvenile selection of words was the grave he dug so tragically, in the valley of respect.

Later, when I could still taste the mild saltiness of blood that just coursed through my mouth sometime back, I experienced what could only be termed as a placid form of depression. Not because of Mr. X, with his gentlemanly yet sexist front, but just the sad reminder of the times we still live in. Not so very nice you see, dear Sir.

And somehow in some perfectly inexplicable way, I thought of how so many of our sexist beliefs pertaining to women, all stem from the big wide world of Pornography. And mind you, when I say ‘our beliefs’ I meant both men AND women. So we come back to the question of porn again. How many of us women admit to seeing it at some point of time or the other? How many would actually admit it to another man? Or maybe just admit the fact that you liked it? I cannot lay claim to a sea of experience when it comes to interaction but whenever I have seen or felt in the various social circles I’ve had the good fortune to acquaint myself with, all I can deduce is ZILCH! Not so much in the homosexual circles though but then again the poor darlings have been themselves straitjacketed to the end of the judgmental spectrum themselves, way too much and way too many times!

But let’s not just diverge from the main focus of my today’s rant against the sexist, bigoted mentality that I’ve had the misfortune of being cohorted with in sporadic bursts of time. So men, in a huge majority sadly, like to believe that women don’t watch porn. But funnily, if their girlfriends admit to it, I have witnessed behavior akin to almost rushing to the nearest departmental store and buying a perfectly packaged bunch of the brightest red cherries to decorate the top of their mentally (and sexually) stimulating cake! For lack of better judgment or just the fact that I’ve never personally experienced such perverseness, the only conclusion I can safely draw is that they suddenly expect their girlfriends (virgin, non-virgin whatsoever) will become these absolute Domina’s in bed who :

a.       Love to blow for hours on end without any such visible needs of their own.

b.      Possess assholes wide enough for a bottle of wine to go up there and stay put till the time she has to accommodate her ‘other’ anal functions, without the slightest hint of discomfort.

c.       Will be writhing in bed in the throes of a wild orgasm by the sight of an unduly large male organ, or maybe just a teensy bit of fucking.

d.      Are absolutely rid of inhibitions about getting down to business with the mailman/ milkman/ postman/ their kid’s friends/…. You get my gist.

e.       And finally the pièce de résistance, women DO NOT have hair on their bodies! (Except the head of course, because lustrous tresses are to be worshipped according to popular culture.)

This brings me into the realm of reality check. Trust me, I am hardly the abusive type and hurling unladylike profanity is pretty unlikely for me. Not because I insist on behaving like a ‘propah’ young lady but I have always cradled the belief that it is quite possible to communicate the torturous murderous feeling running in your veins by just the few right words with a little bit of punch! But never before has my mind gone into an overdrive so furiously fast that the status in my head hardly needs to be elucidated here for the voyeuristic benefit of another.

After I had reasonable time to calm down and think rather than blow fire through my flared nostrils, all I could intensely feel was a strong putrid taste of disgust. Back in my high school days, I once casually happened to go through the “Bridget Jones Diary” by Helen Fielding. I do not remember the exact lines so I dare not quote, but the basic premise of it was that women have to work harder than farmers to please men what with all the waxing, shaving, threading, bleaching, dyeing, and what not my fellow women subject themselves too. At that time, being quite naïve, I dismissed the view as one belonging to the era the book was written in rather than the era of adulthood I would be stepping into soon. Well, talk about a resounding slap in the face!

But still, the hypocritical status of our modern mindsets hardly gives me any respite. Sexual desires, however phenomenally strong and pronounced, have to be covered under this colossal blanket of chastity. BECAUSE, somewhere somehow women have condoned such behavior. Not the women living behind colourful veils in closeted spaces but even the ones putting on the perfect fragile façade of modernity, as to baffle any normal person, with the duality of emotions and behavior. I am not claiming to be perfect but then I also don’t shave my cunt and then lay claim to my oh-so-precious virginity.

This driving need to please the not-so-weaker sex has sent me grabbing for my pen finally. I have contemplated writing this for a really long time than I would care to admit. And yes one of the major reasons was the judgment and criticism that would ensue.

But then I realized, who am I trying to please?