Trigger warning: has mature scenes and a hint of self harm at the very end. Read at your own choice.

Family is supposed to be our safe haven, very often it’s the place where we find the deepest heartache. And none knew it better than Siddhartha Basu.

Nobody has sympathy for a man raped by a woman. ‘Men can’t get raped”, they would say. If talking about sexual assault or abuse is hard, people should try living with it for a lifetime.

Siddhartha was aware of every word of it, knew that pretty well, for he was a living embodiment of those words. From early teenage, he was conditioned to act a certain way, behave a certain way, appear a certain way because he was a man.

Masculinity is a quality, it should never be transformed into vanity. If a man is supposed to always be strong, control his emotions, be self-reliant, not be a victim how the hell can he tell he’s struggling, he’s vulnerable, he’s alone and is sexually abused!

The lure of temporary fulfilment, the raw appeal of walking and breathing sex, the temptations and magnetism of the euphoria beckoned Siddhartha to walk more into dangerous waters without realising how deep the it was.

Rianka was a vixen dressed as a fairy godmother, the veil of manipulation she wore and carried was too hard to detangle for a naïve boy like him, with time it enticed him into heights of enchantment until the rough, crude power of truth thrashed him back into the eternal depths of hell.

As months turned to years, from a young boy hopelessly in love, he transitioned into a defenceless addict craving his next dose of intoxication, one that came in the form of rough, twisted pleasures with belts, whips and wounds. His heart and body coveted to take control, desired to draw sadistic satisfaction from more intense sex, painful postures filled with torturous moans, yet the want to get out was not as strong as the urge to remain encaged and surrender his soul to the seductive will of a witch reincarnated.

In moments of sheer perversion, he was taught to weaponise sex along with brute pornography until both destroyed his very being, fed his soul to the devil and snowballed his emptiness into deep insecurities, destructive complexes that gave rise to more porn and hence a pertinacious effort to gratify himself through beastly copulation.

Trapped in a web of lies and deceit, Siddhartha, once a young, carefree teenager turned into a recluse, grappling for breath every time he came out of the water yet finding an odd numbness once he started sinking to the darkest trenches.

                                ********

“I’m warning, I’m not going to leave your daughter alone..I’m going to make her life hell, tell me where she is? Tell me?” As Siddhartha clambered out of the bed and wobbled his way to the washroom, audible shouts from the living area caught his attention. He staggered forth and hid behind the walls.

His mother was on phone, howling and yelling her lungs out, unleashing all her wrath on most probably, Shrestha’s father.

“She was the witch, she was the person who invited curses into this family…no no..I don’t want to listen to anything…no, I said no…what? Absolutely not, my son is not at all at fault…you should have been careful before giving birth to such a daughter. No..listen to me first, she was beautiful and often tried to beguile wealthy men with her looks, do you know that?..I’ll take you to court…who will forgive? Me? No, never…do not request..yes...I mean it, I'll see you in court…no Mr Sen, no more talks…you’ll get a letter from my lawyer…no, there is no place for prostitutes in my hou—” the rest of the sentence lay hanging in mid air as Siddhartha snatched the phone from his mother’s hand and disconnected the call.

“What are you doi—”

“Shut up, ma! Just shut up!” he screamed pointing his finger at her. “What the bloody hell were you doing?” he threw the wireless device into the ground, it fell and went dead with a loud crack.

“Mind your language, Babin!” She warned. Clenching her teeth she continued, “That slut and her family should be shown their places! Who are you to object?”

Raging like a bull, Siddhartha could only see red. Given permission, he wouldn’t hesitate to shove that woman to death from their second floor blacony. “Ma, we have had this discussion before, I’m warning you, do not do this. Enough is enough, do not repeat. And for heaven’s sake stop demeaning people saying things you know is not the truth! Stop bullshitting th—”

“Babin, you cannot speak to your mother as such! What bullshitting? What wrong did I say? Oh, that your wife was a charmer?! That part?” She countered and hastened towards the broken phone which was now lying with its parts  all out.

He followed, determined to stop her boorish attitude. Her barbaric temperament and austere personality had always failed to put her in people’s good books. Yes, he was grateful, eternally grateful for his mother was the only one who stood by him when he was struggling and languishing in murky waters, but it by no means should ensure that she could go on a rampage and he would stand a silent witness.

“Leave her alone, ma. I mean it.”

“No way I would do that! She destroyed our family name, left with that note! What does she think of herself? Babin, let me remind you, my name is Gayatri Basu, I’m not going to leave that woman alone!”

Bloody family name!
One tainted with addiction!

Siddhartha noticed his muscles tighten, his jaws were set firm. The hangover from yesterday was splitting his head in two and there was an inch of space left till he knew his tolerance would fall apart. He clenched and unclenched his teeth. “Do you have any idea you are digging your own grave? Why on bloody Earth would you threaten them with a lawyer? Who would provide the cost? Would it come from your father’s estate?”

She turned in wild irritation, her eyes blazing with fury giving off a look befitting a provoked tigress. She paced towards him and raised her hand, but the slap never made contact with his face. He held her wrists with sheer strength and the voluntary change of momentum startled her for a second. Siddhartha knew the reason behind her bewilderment, it was the first time in close to two decades that he had so openly shown defiance.

Enough is enough!

“I would advise you refrain from repeating what you attempted”, he cautioned. “And I would prefer you stop calling Shrestha or her family members. That girl is gone for good, let her be.”

In reply he only heard sound of her forceful exhalations, they were harsh and long, with nostrils flaring each time the breath came out. Her hands now lowered, were balled into fists.

“Did you understand what I said?” he repeated.

“And what if I say I didn’t. What would you do? After everything I did, this is how you repay your mother? Or have you forgotten what I did to feed you, cloth you after your father died? Or even before his death! Can you imagine where would you be?”

He scoffed.

Brilliant! Bloody brilliant!

He knew his mother was a master manipulator, but it was just then that he became aware of its extent. To others it might sound unacceptable that she could potentially blackmail her own son, but nobody understood the truth better than Siddhartha did.

Shrestha’s sudden departure was a huge blow to her wounded ego. What he failed to believe was why his mother was so disgruntled about the fact and why she took the desertion so personally. Yes, it was unexpected on one level but totally anticipated on another. For months, they had been keeping a lie, to themselves and to the world. They were living an arrangement made to be exclusive for the two of them, one which didn’t have a meaning to either!

“Then, can you answer why you gave birth to me in the first place?” he shouted. “You had a choice there, didn’t you?..How low can you go? Blackmailing your own son to justify your point? That’s it?!” He was in denial, somehow it was tough to accept that his mother was utilising her last weapons.

Is it really so surprising?

Think carefully.

She stood silent for a moment, gave him an unflinching stare, then with a low, controlled tone, growled, “sometimes I really wonder why I gave birth to you. Because…you know what, I did have a choice. There were reasons why your father gave me the choice of abortion…but you never lived up to it..I regret doing so.” She gave a dry laugh, curled her lips into a gesture of extreme discontent and passed a hateful look from his top to bottom. “Turned out, you grew up to be as much a shoddy good as him.”

With this, she paced past him with long, angry strides. Siddhartha couldn’t utter a word as he was only left fuming and seething with rage.

                               ********

How worthless can I be?
How dangerous can I be?
How paltry am I?

Siddhartha sat in his room locked up, beside him stacked bottles of empty liquor indicated his inebriated state. His mother's words had opened the doors to hell. "Your father gave me the choice for abortion"—it swirled within his mind, multiplying the questions which had always gnawed at the back of his head and played a game of hide and seek with his remnant sanity.

Alcohol was a failing mess and he noticed he needed something stronger.

He cried, howled at his sorry state.

Shrestha, look at me!
What have I become?

He couldn't help picture his wife, even in extreme chaos, he reminisced how she offered to help him.

Yes she was the only one.

He remembered how she held his hand intending to provide unconditional support, irrespective of the status of their marriage. He remembered the earnestness in her eyes but the next moment they were obscured by arousing, provocative imageries complete with beastly coupling and fornication.

He shivered, quavered with rage on one hand and hopelessness on the other. He sat on the ground, a shirt half open, knees tucked close to the chest. He wanted to spit at his despicable self, beat the hell out of the blood thirsty demon that had inhabited his body degrading him from a conscious human to a brute, barbarian monster who pined for nothing other than revel in sadistic pleasures.

Really?
Did I ever draw pleasure?
Did he ever know what pleasure was or is?

How long had it been he had poured his heart out to somebody? How long had it been he had wanted to say out loud he yearned to be human again? That he was tired and fatigued after running and running away?

Tears rolled down, fell in droplets along his sunken cheeks. He was hungry but the smell of food was nauseating. Alcohol was a bad substitute,  it barely served the purpose but did its job in whitewashing the reality, dismantling the practicality to create an alternate universe.

He switched his laptop on where toxic of the most toxic videos started loading. No sooner sounds of lashing and thrashing boomed about in the empty room, it was oddly satisfying and replaced the sinister silence that crawled out from the doors and windows and slowly made their way, their slit tongues hissing at him, a reminder of the days dipped in carnal passion. The days which signalled the origin of it all.

Moans and screams should have caused an arousal, that was the point.

Alas! Siddhartha lay as limp as before!

He browsed through more hardcore ones, tried to masturbate while basking in the rhythm of the up and down movements created within the screen where men, women or both twisted their bodies in the most impractical postures and made out with anything and anybody, even the poor animals were not left to chew grass! But, it was of no use. Nothing was hard enough to harden him, nothing was gory enough to create an arousal.

I need more!
I still need more?!

Oh God!

He huffed and puffed, exasperated he couldn't handle the torture. He wished to be dead.

Yes, he genuinely wished he could be dead. That would stamp the end of it all. The pain, the numbness, the rusty feelings, the toxic emotions...everything that carved his heart out each bloody day. It would terminate all the suffering, he needed it, he badly needed it.

The idea was enticing. In the bleak consciousness that somehow prevailed, he opened his eyes and perceived light at the end of the road, the road to freedom, the road where there would only be he and nobody else, nothing but eternal peace and sleep.

That was it, he would cease to want anybody, anything anymore.

He decided to choose slumber, eternal slumber. Yes, his resolve would be firm.

People might voice their opinion that the haggard again chose darkness but unlike other times, Siddhartha knew it would ensure rest.

                               *******

A couple of hours later, Mrs Gayatri Basu recovered the limp, bloody body of her son from their locked and forsaken attic. The door was broken by neighbours and she was stunned to witness his unconscious body showered in a pool of red liquid. His outstretched hands hung from the bed, dripping blood in droplets that formed a small rivulet on the ground below..

A small note was left discarded on the dirty floor, splattered with drops, the writing incomprehensible and messy.

Crying and weeping terribly, Mrs Basu picked it up. On it was written to no one in particular:

'I stopped the struggle. Many people said denial was easy, I want them to know I never denied. I accepted my demons from the very first day. But, I chose strength at last, the strength that gave me the will to power through it all.

                     I won't keep fighting it anymore...may be I had already lost..now is the beginning..'

                              *******

AN:

How did the chapter go?

I wanted to raise awareness against the stigma regarding sex addiction.

To all those who abuse:

The sin is yours
The crime is yours
The shame is yours

To all those out there, speak out, take help, get yourselves heard, there are many like you languishing in the corners.

To all those who are reading and listening, stand up for the innocent or go down with the rest.