Copyright Oggbashan October 2020
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
This is a work of fiction. The events described here are imaginary; the settings and characters are fictitious and are not intended to represent specific places or living persons.
The women's conference in Mumbai was drawing to an end. On this final day they had overrun. They should have finished at eleven pm but now it was just after midnight on October 31st, Halloween in some traditions.
All the more than two hundred attendees from all over the Indian sub-continent had one thing in common. Every one of them had been forcibly raped by a stranger. The conference was to try to plan a campaign to get the laws about rape, and more importantly their implementation, much more likely to lead to the rapist being convicted. Weak laws and corrupt police forces meant that a woman was unlikely to be believed, and even if she was, the courts rarely convicted.
The President ended her concluding address and asked for the women to stand and pray in silence, to whatever or whoever they believed in, for help and guidance. She couldn't lead the prayers out loud. They people present were Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Christian and other minor faiths.
+++
The double doors at the back of the hall crashed open. A fierce-looking woman, carrying two naked swords, stamped her way up the aisle followed by a handsome man in a loincloth. He was over seven feet tall with blond hair yet a brownish Indian skin.
The woman jumped up on the podium as if it was a short step. She took her position behind the lectern, vacated by the President who had retreated in horror at the apparition. The man remained on the floor of the conference hall.
"Women! You prayed for help. You might not have expected me, but here I am. To the Hindus? I am Kali. To the others, I am either Lilith or a demon. But whatever you call me, I am the embodiment of the cruel side of female sexuality. I am the essence of those who practice femdom, the cruel mistresses, and the women who torture men. The Hindus among you should recognise me as the deadly form of Kali who enjoys people being killed and human sacrifices to me. But you have no need to be afraid. I have come to answer to your prayers for help. And this..."
She pointed at the tall man standing on the floor in front of the podium.
"...Is my son, Nathan. I will tell you about how Nathan came to be. In the days of the British Raj, in the late Nineteenth Century, a small district was run by a District Commissioner, an Englishman, who tried to be fair and impartial to everyone regardless of colour or caste. But there was a powerful men's society of Hindu men who were evil. To become and remain a member, every one of them had to rape a strange woman every week. In that small area, hundreds of women were raped every year. The Englishman tried hard to find the members are prosecute them but too many people were afraid of the powerful men of that society, They were the landlords, the money men, even the town councillors. One day the Englishman's wife went shopping in the local bazaar, accompanied by two of her maids. All three were attacked by members of the men's society and raped. The chairman of the men's society raped the commissioner's wife but when he had finished she produced a small pistol from her reticule and shot him dead, in the heart. She then shot another of the rapists with the second barrel, injuring him slightly.
The injured man and the other rapist were grabbed and held by the people in the bazaar and hauled before the District Commissioner. With his wife's testimony and that of her maids, he ordered that the two men be held in jail until their trial which would have to be before another judge, since the commissioner couldn't try a case involving his wife.
In the Police cells, he local policemen were incensed that the wife of their respected and loved District Commissioner had been raped. They shouldn't have, but they beat the two men and threatened to castrate them slowly with a blunt knife unless they confessed and named the other members. They were given twenty-two other names, all of whom were arrested without the District Commissioner's knowledge. But once those men were arrested, the local women were no longer afraid, Over the next week they made over five hundred sworn attestations of rape against the twenty-four men now in custody.
The District Commissioner was delighted that all the members of that men's society had been arrested but appalled at the number of rapes they were accused of. He was told that the five hundred were only a proportion of the women who had been raped over the last decade.
He appointed local judges to try the cases. It took three months, but all twenty-four men were convicted. The judges' sentences were that every man should be castrated before being blown to pieces tied to a cannon.
.
I would have liked that but the District Commissioner changed to sentences to a simple public hanging. On the day the twenty-four men were hanged, he returned home to find that his wife had shot herself, having discovered that the dead rapist had made her pregnant.
While he was grieving, I decided he needed a reward for ending the rape ordeal of so many women. I took the place of one of his maids, and made love to him in her shape. He never knew that he had had sex with a Goddess but I became pregnant -- with Nathan. Shortly afterwards he married that maid and she became his official wife. She never told him that she knew that he had been fucked by the Goddess Kali.
Now Nathan is Anglo Indian. From his father he has inherited a strong sense of justice and respect for women. From me, his mother, he has the powers of a God and a destructive streak which he can control. He has come to help the women of the Indian sub-continent from rapists. But, also from me, he has a strong sexual drive. He needs sex, consensual sex, and usually from the professional women who will do it for money. Apart from defending women from rapists, he is also what might be called the patron of whores. What he would like is payment for defending women against rapists. His price is low -- one Indian rupee for each woman saved. And he doesn't want the money personally. It can be given to charity, any charity, with just his name, Nathan, said or thought, as the donation is made.
If someone will make a donation, a very small amount, Nathan will demonstrate what he can do."
The President, white-faced and trembling, came forward with a hundred rupee note. Kali took it.
"Thank you. Nathan? Go!"
Nathan just vanished. After what appeared to a few seconds, he was back, standing on the podium next to Kali.
"Well, son?" Kali asked.
"I went to a small village in Uttar Pradesh. The village elders, all old men who were also landlords, were trying a family for refusal to pay rent. The family's landlord had doubled the rent to a level that was impossible. In a good year, the original rent would have been seventy per cent of the land's produce. In a bad year, it would be more than one hundred and twenty per cent. It had been a bad year yet the new rent was set at two hundred and forty per cent of the family's earnings. When the rent collector came, he was told that the rent couldn't be paid. He beat the father until the son intervened and knocked the rent collector down before fleeing to Nepal. The elders were about to give judgement and their sentence would have been that the family's daughter should be raped in public every week until the family paid the full rent."
"What did you do, Nathan?"
"I fitted all the elders with chastity belts. While wearing them, they couldn't have sex, nor piss or shit. I hung the keys around their wives' necks. But only the wives can unlock the belts. If the elders stole the keys, they wouldn't work. I then ordered that the family's rent should never be more than twenty per cent of whatever the land produced in any year, and because of previous overpayments, they should pay nothing for the next five years. I forbade the elders from taking any action against any member of the family and if they did, the chastity belts would remain firmly shut until they die, drowned in their own piss and shit."
"OK, Nathan, so that was one rupee for one woman. What about the other ninety nine?"
"Any woman threatened with rape in that village only has to say my name. When she and ninety eight others, do that, the potential rapist will find himself wearing a chastity belt like the elders and he cannot undo it without the consent of the woman he was trying to rape. There are unlikely to be any rapes in that village for years."
"Well, ladies, what do you think of Nathan so far?" Kali asked.
The response, gradually at first, was a storm of clapping.
Nathan whispered in Kali's ear as the clapping continued. She whispered back.
"OK. Nathan has a suggestion, if you agree. What he could do is mark every rapist with a tattoo of balls and a penis with a raised section of skin so even if covered with makeup it would still be visible. If a man has committed rape, that tattoo will appear on his forehead and his hair will not grow to conceal it. If he has been fairly convicted of rape, a second mark will appear on one cheek and his beard will not grow over it. If convicted twice or more, a third mark will appear on the other cheek. But as Nathan is a demi-god, he will know whether the man actually committed the rape. Anyone unfairly convicted will not have the mark.
I have made a counter-suggestion. Any woman who accuses a man of rape that didn't happen will be marked with a vulva on her forehead, and also on the cheek if fairly convicted.
Do you agree?"
The President, despite her fear, came forward.
"Can we have a show of hands, please? Raise your hand for the original suggestion to mark a rapist."
Almost every hand went up.
"OK, that is agreed. Now for the second suggestion about women who allege rape that didn't happen?"
This time about two-thirds of the hands went up followed by a few more, slowly and reluctantly.
"OK," Kali said. "I can understand your reluctance. Every woman in this room has been actually raped. But Nathan will exercise judgement. A woman who has been sexually assaulted but doesn't actually meet the strict legal definition of rape will not be marked if she alleges rape when the actual assault stopped just short. Is that OK?
More hands went up. Nathan whispered in Kali's ear as the President announced that the second vote had passed. Kali nodded.
"Nathan has asked that the markings should not be permanent for life. If, after five years, those marked have not committed any further offence, the marks will vanish? Is that OK?"
The President asked for a third vote. That was agreed.
