A Rainy Night

Chapter - 6

Twelve years flew going back and forth in class and hostel, discussing the new scenes or sound we had heard. My chest had started protruding, we were injected with a chemical substance that allowed our body parts to grow quickly. In boys, it made their muscles thicken. Puberty came early because of it, and with that, we were prepared to leave the hostel, to our journey of practising the knowledge we had devoured in that learning institution.

The task of preparing girls was given to the two women, who were in their forties, seen the world and its men, danced on the various crotches of men. They were hired to teach the girls practical knowledge to deal with customers, "No, emotion-wimotion, no chikni-chupdi baat me aana, they pay for pleasure, give them that only." These women taught us simpler facts, like wearing condom, charging double for anal, and to other grave matters like sly tricks on customers so that they become regular visitors. 

My breast had started swelling, mound could be felt and seen. Abin had also changed from an embarrassed kid to a big handsome man. His chest and arms were like bodybuilders. Whenever he met me, during these years, he always complained about the physical exercises, "they make us workout like horses", he always questioned the relation between sex and physique.

The previous day, Abin asked permission to let him feel my breast, but the class was full that I could not answer. The preservation of virginity is all that institution demands. It pays them well. That night I was awake very late thinking about him. I felt an urge to go to him and perform every activity that I had learned. Next day, he came after the class was over and told me the existence of a "trysting place" used by boys and girls to do the task. My heartbeat increases, he asked me to meet me near the boundary, which was in the back of my building, after the dinner was over. I had a fair chance if I managed well to steal myself from the group. I took my friend, Aritra, in confidence who was taken from the bus station and requested her to left open the back window.

I stealthily moved away from the group of students returning from the mess and went to the back of the building near the boundary wall. It was pitch dark, I saw no one around, no armed guard, only howling of wolves were piercing the silence. I felt nervous standing there, trying hard to divert my mind from the consequences, if caught. I noticed a small ladder hidden in the bushes. I waited for Abin anxious, thankfully, he arrived within a minute sweating, his chest heaving. 

He took the heavy ladder and inclined it easily on the wall then stepping up sat on it, making a gesture to climb up. We were both sitting on the boundary wall, my fear of getting caught increased, sitting at this height it seemed everyone from the building was watching me. Anytime a shot will be heard and both of us would fall from the wall. Abin lifted the ladder and placed it the other side of the wall to go down. When I was descending my eyes fell on a guard standing at a distance of fifty-meter, sneering lecherously, I panicked, missed a rung and tumbled down. Abin jumped from the wall seeing me lying on the ground.

"Are you alright, Rinu?"

"Yes, but who was that person standing?"

"Oh, you saw him? The guard whose duty is to watch the back of the buildings."

"Then why didn't he stopped us?"

"Don't worry, I have contacts."

"What? Is he your Mama"

He laughed and helped Rinu to stand, and after hiding the ladder in the foot of the boundary wall, he clasped my hand and walked towards the trysting place.

After walking for ten minutes into long bushes, we reached the woods. The presence of air could be felt when the leaves rustled. I heard the hooting of the owls. We were reaching nearer to the howling of wolves, the sound was more clear now. The fear was growing in me, I clasped tightly Abin's hand. I longed for years to venture outside those boundary walls and now when I am outside I fear wild animals and want to return. Life is so dear to us that it does not matter whether we spent it in mud crawling like insects for butter and bread, we just want to live.

"Where are we going?"

"I'm going to give you the time of your life."

"Sex does not qualify for the time of my life."

Abin laughed, "I mean... nevermind, in a minute you will see it for yourself."

He was not wrong in that, in a minute we arrived the other end of the wood and standing there I saw a spectacular scenery that I longed to see since the day I came in that institution. The world I was snatched from, in childhood, was glowing in the light. I felt effulgence of joy and excitement in me. How beautiful it looked, calm and serene, lights shimmering in every house, street lights slithering snake-like and making mesh in the whole city as if people are in a perpetual fight with the night. It was as if stars had come closer to the world and closer to each other as well. There I saw a red light higher than all other lights. It fascinated me seeing the privilege red has got over others to soar high in the sky.