THE HARRIDAN

In a state of diffuse paranoia, I feel disoriented, a rudderless ship is just too trite, and I feel myself locked in a bottle, a ‘message in a bottle’: not bearing good tidings, though. Beware the harridan all you roaming earthlings with dangling members getting erect at the slightest hint of soft flesh, that flesh is made of molten metal, spewing from a volcano that shows no mercy, no respite. Beware!

It was not long after puberty that her tentacles for the physical side of amore got activated. At fourteen, she was handling the chauffer’s throbbing member instead of the gear shift when her parents wanted her to have rudimentary driving lessons. Her growth, blossoming, the chest already bursting even before her parents were able to replace her dress and bra size: she was voluptuous. Who can blame the driver his hardness!

Cute, cute, baby! Cutie pie! Yeah, yeah, everyone said that when she was a kid with remarkably fair skin and a very endearing smile. The goddess of sex, whatever be her name, in Greek or Roman mythology, that’s beside the point, took her ‘in residence’ and she became a star inmate.

At sixteen, the gardener had his hands filled not with organic fertilizer but her full breasts, soon enough, the servant boy crashed into her hymen and made her bleed. He was scared at the sight of blood but she felt relief – good riddance!

Then followed friends her own age, her father’s friends, the friends of the friends, the hapless chaiwallah at the corner of the street, a regular procession, an orgy of delight, for her at least.

Her parents realized, they have special god-gifted tentacles, and married her off to a bright eyed doctor headed for the land of the former rulers: they sighed in relief. Her ‘problems’ were his from now on and not theirs. Parents are selfish bastards, too.

She crossed the ocean and started fishing, no nets, no boats, no floats or allures just those divine pair, at the disposal of anyone to see and the huge marlins and tunas flocked, took the bait and sunk in land. The harlot went on, her husband amiable, angry at times but still trying to save face, living in a community that took more pleasure in home affairs than whether Iraq burned. She produced two sons in the meanwhile. She made sure that they came from the doctor’s swimmers.

Now pushing sixty, she is still on the prowl. I met this guy in a pub in London. He was gulping whisky sours galore and telling me her story. He has spent over two years in the black widow’s net and now finds himself ‘dead’.

She has recently crossed the pond and settled in the New England cold but her hearth keeps aflame. She sits in front of a mirror using all her trickery to look younger, young, even. She scoffs at any hint of aging, anyone for that matter. She won’t even look at the picture of her favourite film star, Sophia Loren, now eighty. She pushes up her sagging breasts using push-ups. She has done her yoga lessons enough to still wear a thong as under-garment. She is ready for the prowl.

She looks at the mirror and feels happy enough. Where the fuck are you running off to, you youngish man? She was expecting a doctor couple for dinner. She dismays at her breasts and decides on a blouse from twenty years back: her ample boobs will be on his face. Ha ha… she is sure of her success later that night or a tryst during the week in a sleazy motel.

She, however, fails to see the crow’s feet, the make-up stuck in the bellows under her eyes, the skin of the arms slightly drooping, her buttocks lower than ever before. She paints a sorry figure in the mirror but her defiance overlooks all that, maybe, so will the youngish man coming to dinner.

The prowler remains on the prowl……….

Dhaka, 5th June 2018.