Mother, at 40, I live with my 3 monkeys that call me Mamma and my in laws (grandmother, grandfather and father of my monkeys) in a house having a reasonably well known and coveted address in Calcutta.
We have a 24 hour house help aged about 26-27 who helps me with everything I need
This is the story of a Sunday.
One Sunday.
One bloody Sunday.
Am breaking the chronology here but I don't want to miss out on my memories if I write this a few months from now.
Sundays I keep exclusively for myself, almost right after I came to stay here in this house.
My home runs on my planning now and since I take pains to see that everyone's needs get priority over mine, no one generally asks me for anything on a Sunday and am free to do whatever I like to with my time.
Some Sundays I just relax as long as I can, enjoying my two bed teas, four to five cigarettes and breakfast between my naps, spending another sleepy hour with my massage girl, picking up a book, fiddling with the to remote, spend an hour in the bath tub and in general doing nothing but forgetting my daily world, fully.
Other Sundays, I drive to the local grocery supermarket to order whatever I need for the month and ask home delivery or go to Gariahat market to choose and buy whatever vegetables, meat and fish we need for the week.
This was a one Gariahat market Sunday, few weeks back.
I had, not sure why, dressed a bit more than usual that day, wearing a random printed black brown red yellow green on white base very low gsm crepe sari over a low cut yellow sleeveless blouse. I decided, undecided and finally chose not to wear bra or panties but since the sari had every chance to fall off from the shoulder, I rounded it over my back and tucked it in my petticoat, to avoid the possibility of being an undesired eye candy, should the sari slip.
I just added 6 pieces of gold bangles to my 24 hour wear sankha(**) (white bangle made of conch shells) and pola(**) ( red bangle made of coral), loha (iron bangle), dark Brown Matt lipstick, diamond nose and ear pins and my mangalsutra(gold and black bead necklace with gold locket worn by married Indian women) dangling in front, kohl in eyes, tiny brown bindi (coloured dot on forehead), a fine width cm of sindur(vermillion - red powder worn by married women in India) in the hair parting and I was ready.
I had finished my fish meat routine, leaving my shopping bag and was checking the fare offered by vegetable market vendors when I suddenly noticed him.
Ramenkaku (Ramen Uncle) is someone whom I met in that very market about 8 or 9 years ago. He was a tall, fair handsome man of about 45 then, always in white kurta pajama, leisurely doing his shopping and during one of those days, taught me how to choose the best fish and meat. He lived just behind the market in one of those old buildings with his wife and two children. His children since then have completed their studies and shifted out of town to their workplace and his wife passed away suddenly about six months ago. Since then, he lived alone in his home, tending to his business, more as a means to pass time than anything else.
Every time we met, he used to carry my bag to my car and then we used to stand in a small tea stall and chit chat over nothings. A few days, he had taken me to his home and we had tea there and I relaxed there for a few minutes and then came back home.
That day, when I looked at him from a distance and smiled, he did not smile back but winced. I gathered that something was wrong and rushed near him and asked "Ki hoyeche kaku (what happened uncle)?"
He didn't reply but just used his right hand to hold me on the open skin between my breasts and waist and just pointed towards his home.
I took the bag from his hand and we slowly started walking towards his home. While walking, I felt his fingers sometimes touching my breasts for a few seconds but I ignored that. I was sure he was not purposely feeling my breasts and it was unintentional.
We slowly reached his home, opened the lock and walked to the drawing room where I made him sit on the sofa and found him quite distraught and shivering and brought him a glass of water from his kitchen. He slowly drank half the water and I stood waiting in that bent position to take the glass back. But while handing over the glass back to me, he inadvertently missed my hand with his shaking hands and the water spilled on my sari.
He looked at me with vacant eyes and started crying.
I do not know why I did what I did but pulled his head softly on my body and held it while he cried. Since I was standing a bit bent and he was sitting, his nose and lips landed around my naval area and his head pressed my breasts. My skin was getting wet and I was feeling odd standing bent like that and so while holding him like that, I slowly held him sat beside him. What happened as a result was that by doing so, my sari end tucked in my petticoat came out and the sari from my shoulder fell exposing my breasts fully. With water splashed on my sari by then having wetted my blouse fully, my breasts, my nipples and areolas started to get clearly visible as the yellow fabric became completely transparent. When I had sat, his head automatically rose from my naval and his nose was now fully on the open central cleavage of my breasts and his crying was making the blouse more and wet and the blouse fully transparent.
I realised these much later, maybe even after I reached home and reflected. My immediate attention was then to somehow make him a bit stable and go back home but as soon as he had his nose on my cleavage, he held me tightly pushing his nose and lips rubbing deeper into my cleavage and I could now clearly feel his lips on my left areola and felt that more and more of that breast was getting fully exposed to his lips by his constant rubbing and at some point in a few seconds I could hear him call out "Oh Sudha, you are back" and start biting my left nipple. His left hand rose fast and took hold of my right boob and he started mauling it hard over my blouse while biting my left nipple continuously mumbling "Sudha Sudha" again and again.
Sudha, I knew, was his dead wife's name.
All this happened in a few seconds and while I felt the pain of his teeth biting my nipple, I was not being able to understand what is happening to me. By the time I realised what was happening, he had taken both my breasts out of the blouse and pushed me down on the sofa under him, my hands under my body and folded both breasts together bringing my nipples close and was eating them together. Eating is the word as he was munching them together as one does while eating.
I started screaming and he left mauling my boob and held my mouth and said "Shut Up Sudha, don't start your tantrums as soon as you are back. We have enough time left for that." I tried to bite his hands but he was too clever for that and my teeth could not reach his skin.
I was feeling so helpless that I started crying while I felt my sari being pulled out of my petticoat. Realising he will fuck me, rather rape me, I tried my best to throw my legs and protest, throw him off my body but he was too powerful and nothing worked. Rather, he said very sternly "Sudha, again you started throwing your tantrums - want me to tear off your clothes fully like last time we fucked?" and started pulling my blouse leaving my petticoat. I shook my head like mad trying to say "NO" but felt one hook of my blouse being torn off under my breasts. He just then raised his eyes as if to ask if I want my blouse to be torn off fully and I violently shook my head saying no. I then felt him opening the blouse hooks one by one and opening the blouse completely from the front.
Lying topless under him, I felt him biting my breasts and trying to open my petticoat knot but he was unable to do it with one hand as he was holding my mouth with the other. He looked at me sternly and said "Sudha, why are you being so difficult with me today? You were not like this when you went away. Please, I just want to be closer to you. You are now forcing me to tear off your petticoat" and pushed his hand in the triangular opening in the petticoat cloth where I tie the knot and started tearing it off.
I suddenly realised that it is pointless for me to try to stop the inevitable anymore. I didn't have the capacity to stop his assault and I had already lost to his brute force completely. I knew at that very moment that I will be raped today come what may and the best would be to cooperate with him so that at least he will not tear off all my clothes and I will have something to wear to my car if and when he allows me to go. I just somehow took my hands out from under my body where he had forced them and held his hand that was tearing my petticoat, opened the knot and pushed the petticoat down as far as I could. He smiled and said "That's like you, my love. This is the Sudha that I married" and pushed to petticoat fully down and threw it far off. He lifted my topside and pulled out the blouse I was wearing and threw it away. I just made my mind go blank and awaited the inevitable while I felt him lifting me and carrying me inside and throwing me on his bed.
I closed my eyes and felt him licking my face over and over again roughly pressing my breasts and at some point I felt him holding my mangalsutra and saying "What is this Sudha? I didn't buy you this. Whose mangalsutra are you wearing?" He started pulling it to tear it off. (**) Something rang inside me and I held his hand with both hands and screamed "Do whatever you want with me. Whatever. I promise I will not say a word. I will not try to stop you. Please don't touch this. Please leave this alone. " I don't know what came over him, he left my mangalsutra alone and again started to lick my face hard. I felt him licking my lips and saying "When did you buy this colour Sudha? Don't remember you wearing this before." I felt like crying out loud but somehow stopped myself.
It's not that I was a virgin or that I had not been fucked by anyone other than my husband. It wasn't even that I was not forced ever by any man before and fucked, sometimes more than once. I don't know how to explain this but somehow it was not about the bites and the rape I was going to face anytime. Somewhere down the line, I felt cheated, betrayed. My trust was being betrayed by a man who was only a few years younger to my father or my mother in law. I trusted him completely over the years and used to look forward to meet him every Sunday. That betrayal hurt me most, it was tearing my heart and tears started rolling out of my eyes and I hated myself even more when I felt him licking those tears up and chuckling. I bit my lips and closed my eyes hard to prepare myself for the worst.
