Body stories

The bed sheet felt comfortable against her bare skin. She tightened the blanket against her torso to keep herself warm. It was a particular December evening outside. Forlorn, dark and cold, her favorite kind of weather. Her side table still had a pack of cigarettes and an ash tray. The ash tray bore witness to her companion who had now left but his half burned cigarette was still there. She made a mental note of getting rid of it but not just yet. Not so soon. First, she wanted to see these trophies of her rebellion for a little while longer. She partly thought it was an attempt to make herself believe that she had finally done it. She closed her eyes and thoughts came rushing. She remembered how she was tired of demons that lived inside her. The demons in the form of guilt, fear, insecurity and conditioning haunted her as long as she could remember. She used to think she was free, she had a choice and she was making it happily and willingly but no matter how much she repeated this mantra in her mind that her body belonged to herself, it was empty noise. It wasn't hers. Its pieces had their stings attached to someone's honor right from her birth to her death. It belonged to men in her life. Her brother, her father and when she finally gets handed over to her husband, it would be his to protect.  She was supposed to embrace it, swallow her pride and wrap her mind around it because that's what good girls do, that's what chastity demands.

Her desires were slowly choked and strangled in a tender age by women surrounding her. Right there, at time when her innocent mind couldn't register that little spark inside her, down there. She was taught to hate it, kill that itch or it would taint her honor. Their words, subtle and tightly woven, gnawed on her natural instincts, piercing them, shredding them into pieces until she became oblivious to their existence. She forgot her recognition. They never died but she starved them to a point that made her believe they don't exist anymore. They became faceless. Time and again, there came men who fed them just a little to make them purr again like a baby who wanted to grow. They wanted a share but she was taught to protect it for someone she didn't even know. So, she never let that happen. She never allowed them to swell because she believed if she lets them swell, they will eat her tortured soul. Twenty one years she did her duty diligently, fending off men politely and restraining herself forcefully. Those demons were hooked to her body, sucking her liberty, snatching  her right to blossom under someone's love. She was scared and tired of living a double life, running between her tortured pieces of body to a free soul. It was costing her sanity. But then, she met a man who taught her to gently probe her tattered soul and uncover her power. She learned to accept herself a little. She managed to believe that she had a right on her own flesh even if no one was ready to give it to her. She had to choose a side and the one she had been towards for the past twenty years gave her nothing and cost her liberty. So, she decided to rebel. She had finally done it. She stripped her demons layer by layer with every touch of him. It was like she sucked them out of her soul with every kiss. She was light as a feather. The sin tasted like heaven. That ash tray with burning ash and her bare shoulders still feeling his touch were witness to this treason. She bought her liberty at a risk of her life. It was tragic but life is unfair especially to women who seek liberty. It was a heavy cost to pay but what is the point of  living anyway without freedom? So, she smiled while lightening the last cigarette and and saw her demons puffing away in its smoke. Through the smoke she looked at the door he left partly opened behind him and decided to open it more often for him.