Siddhartha awoke with a scare.

The red ropes, the belt whips, the lashings, the sounds, the cries, the black ribbon, the fresh cuts, the wounds, the red marks on wrists..and..and..the trauma!

Argh! They are too fresh!

He shook his head, it was an attempt to shake off the dizziness and a part of the abrasion on his mind that had been lurking behind his intentionally carved image of a recluse for years. His hair had crept past his ears, they had not been trimmed since the last few days and he hated how his unclean scalp itched and tingled.

A month ago Siddhartha could never fathom a disaster as this, he was a respected man with a good salary to back, a good looking, smart wife to brag..

Respected man!

Wife to brag?!

My foot!

And now?!

Now he was a wandering vagabond, kicked out of job, sent packing with a termination letter in hand.

Shit!

Shrestha had left before he could break the news of his firing to her, it was his fault though, he lacked the courage.

To be honest, he had always lacked courage. Being a recreant who hid behind outward boldness, exercising his masculine choices on the fairer and comparatively weaker sex, the females, he wrapped his vulnerabilities with a well crafted ego.

However, did he intend to hide the news from her?

No, never.

She was his wife after all! That much entitlement she had.

She had more.

Yes, he was aware, she had more rights that she ever exercised and he allowed her to. She was more than she ever had shown him and he intended to notice. She manifested varied qualities which was in stark contrast to people of her class and surprising for a fake chauvinist as him.

She definitely was more than he gave her credit for.

Might be he too was more than he ever let people believe?

Just..might be?

A wry smile escaped his bruised and dry lips, the wound cut open giving out blood. He squinted in displeasure. Self-loathe was playing havoc and there was hardly a place he could be by himself.

He hated his existence, regretted the way he would act and behave, abominated the very reason behind his birth and mourned at the origin of all those darkness..the day it all started..that day..that very 15th of May when he had stumbled upon the woman who changed his life forever..when, to escape one reality he bumped into another.

Situations can be transformational. On some days one could feel like the ocean, on others you feel like you're drowning in it. Siddhartha had forgotten when he last felt as vast as the ocean but he definitely knew what drowning in it was.

He sat distressed, head bent, face covered with hands. Under his pillow, a quarter of the letter peeked through, the writing still comprehensible in spite of its worn out state.

'I know what happened in your teenage, but hurt people continue to hurt others and there's no grace in passing the pain.

Acceptance is tough, denial is easy.'

Siddhartha exhaled a hot gust of air, it was deep and resonated his inner turmoil.

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

He pulled at his hair, screamed at the top of his lungs, wanted to pour his heart out to someone, it could be anyone, any bloody person who would listen to a miserable vagrant as him.

Could he ever fathom that day that he would be this lonely, so lonely! What good would a house do, what could large, empty rooms possibly give him other than space? Lots and lots of space, Siddhartha had grown tired of spaces. They haunt him, taunt him, plague his very sanity. What would an urchin as him do with all those deposits in the bank?

He was poor, poorest of the poor for he wasn't deprived of riches, of possessions!

He was robbed of humanity, of love, of compassion, of empathy, of kindness!

He cussed and cursed himself, his mother for frolicking with the bastard called Sanyal, he despised his personality and regretted how he could never confront her in the right manner regarding her affairs, he lamented how he allowed himself to be brainwashed into believing that an asshole of a lawyer as Sanyal would help them tie their failing business together and his mother's whoring herself to him would ensure smooth transition.

Ridiculous!

Bloody insane!

The only reason why he felt compelled to pledge his utmost surrender to that woman was because..was because she got him out of her clasps..her mother was the only one who was able to..

Siddhartha shivered. In the chilly coldness of a December morning, the very thought of that bitch sent tingles through his spine, the same kind of tingles he felt decades back in anticipation, in excitement. But, now they were of scare, of anxiety, not of thrill and stimulation.

The watch in their living room donged with recurring counts to signal five in the morning. And his heart hammered with each ring, each vibration as sordid flashbacks froze him at that very spot.

Daunting memories, once lovingly curated through years crept up from the shadows, bared their long nails, showed their fangs and hissed at him. He shut his lids tight to avoid relieving those painful moments, moments which had once signalled magical beginnings, did extraordinary tricks, showed him things he hadn't seen before, things which were pure fun until it started making crucial life decisions, until it turned something akin to Stockholm Syndrome, where the victim develops an irrational affection to its captor. It's an arrangement where that person may taunt you, wound you, abuse you, torture you yet you remain inexplicably and disturbingly loyal.

That day she had promised to give him the antidote for his bleeding heart, but instead of healing, it broke it at thousand myriad places.

********

Siddhartha darted across the streets, hyper and impatient with an aching heart yearning for answers. Placing the puzzle pieces together was no more a onerous task. He needed something to erase that image from his memory.

A drink, someone, something, anything that would dump the rawness of that image-his mother and that bastard..

Overwrought with emotions and sinking down a tenebrous spiral of decay and decomposition, he couldn't allow the reality to settle.

He just had one thing in mind, he had to escape. And running was the only way to get out of that hell.

Directionless, vexed out of sheer desperation, he crashed into her. It was as if the Beast stomped on the Beauty. The person he least intended to see, was standing in front of him.

Full lips, waist-length, jet black hair falling down in rhythmic curls, peach and cream complexion, a trinket on the ankles created a sweet melody. A yellow kurta sat on her generously endowed body, the bright hue heightened her charm. There she was, like a damsel who had been sent straight from heaven, stood Rianka-his friend's older sister and forever crush.

Being at the throes of puberty, his raging hormones spiked to a different level whenever she came near. Naïve and still on a journey to figure out more about his own anatomy and it's weird complexities, Siddhartha jumped to a halt, her perfume as usual waved past his nose arousing some senses he had been finding quite hard to manage.

"What has happened?" she said, wide eyed. Her black orbs twinkled with concern. Siddhartha felt ill at ease standing in the middle of conflicting emotions. His deep anguish clashed with piqued curiousness and other mixed thoughts he would rather not pay heed to.

"No-nothing..nothi-" he stammered.

"Shhh!" she put her long fingers on his lips. "You look worried." Cupping his cheek with her soft hands, she stared at him.

Siddhartha squirmed. He had never felt this uneasy in life. Yes, he adored her, he knew he wanted her to be by his side but he couldn't still make out the complicacy of his thoughts, the peculiarities behind his bodily abnormalities. He was aware he needed to put more time into deciphering the cause. The hyper heartbeats, the sweating palms, the unusual tension and anxiety, he didn't know why it was happening all at the same time.

He smiled an awkward smile and continued to stammer.

"Come with me", she pulled at his hand and hurled him towards her house, the touch too intoxicating for his debilitating control.

Still, his innocent soul had no idea what lay in store. Like a deer caught in headlights, he fidgeted to lessen the rising anxiety, all the while his poor heart appeared to leap out of chest.

To him, Rianka was the epitome of beauty and no matter the number of times he endeavoured to divert his attention from her alluring curves and graceful movements, he couldn't help but be transported to a place where they...

Siddhartha's thoughts were ruptured by a hand on his shoulders. "What has got you thinking so much?" Rianka's close proximity gave his senses a much needed stimulation and her honeyed voice was a balm to his burnt emotions, the pent up anger. Her single touch at the nape of his neck prickled his skin, it made the hairs on hands stand up in alarm. "Can I be of any help in lightening the mood?" her hands brushed through his hair as he curled his toes inward, resisting hard his surging arousal.

She got up and discarded her dupatta to the sides, Siddhartha swallowed as his eyes did not fail to notice the plunging neckline highlighting her generous breasts.

Boys in schools often brought magazines and he wasn't typically new to the intricacies of a female anatomy, but the prospect having a first hand knowledge was something out of his wildest imagination.

She neared him slowly, one step at a time, making sure to charm herself all the way to his heart. Siddhartha could only stare in daze, trapped in her charisma until he felt soft, plump lips traced his dry and arid ones.

For him, it was the strangest of strangest sensations, something he could never again articulate. For the first time he felt a woman, soft, hot, cold all at the same time.

He shivered as her hands tugged the hair around his neck, trembled as she very slightly nibbled at his lips and positioned his hands on her waist. Siddhartha had never touched a woman before, being virtually aware of her body parts in biology class was one thing, and being in front of one, totally eclipsed by her raw, oozing sex was another.

Could he complain the thousand tingling sensations that pricked his skin at various places? Did he resist the tightening of certain parts of his body? No to both.

Because they gave him the kind of freedom he had failed to anticipate, they washed over the burden of discomfiture inflicted upon by the sudden turn of events, marred the distress arising out of troubled times.

As their clothes kissed the floor and they got enveloped in a cloud of new found ecstasy, all the despair, dejection and despondency that Siddhartha had earlier felt pooling at his feet, vanished into thin air, leaving unadulterated euphoria behind.

It was much, much later, he came to know he was the only one to revel in the glory of paradise her companionship brought along. Because, to her he was just another toy!

To her, he was a sweet, little plaything whose innocence was sacrificed at the altar of her selfish needs.

To her, he was just another mere conquest!

For Sidhartha never knew he was being abused!

******

The most unfortunate aspect of addiction is when you think you can stop, you don't and when you know you have to stop, you can't.

Siddhartha Basu had long been aware he ought to stop, but he had been hopping from one addiction to another in a vain quest for ways to not work at his feelings.

He had been so trapped in that world, he observed he would have no escape from the dungeon his mind had become. It was hell disguised as heaven and the worst part about anything self-destructive is, it's intimate. You become so close and habituated with your addictions and illness that leaving them threatens the very source that taught you to survive in the first place.

It is said that recovery is not a race. You don't have to feel guilty if it takes longer than it normally should, but for Siddhartha Basu, one of the hardest things was learning that he was worth the recovery.

AN

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