KATHA

35 KATHA - MONSTERS OF THE PAST

Double Surprise!

I moaned, my mind still hazy with sleep, as he kissed up my neck. "Little gazelle ? Wake up, baby."

"Go away, Kalki. I'm so sore, it feels like I'm on fire. How are you doing, by the way ? Any chances of giving me babies in the near future ?" I raised my hand to hit him blindly. Hearty laughter filled the room and my heart as he caught it and placed a lazy kiss on my palm.

"I wasn't waking you for that. It's actually morning. We have somewhere to go remember ?"

"Oh."

"Oh and yes ? Don't you worry. I plan on giving you a lot of babies." He said that thing at least five times a day and those roses of fragrant warmth still bloomed everywhere inside me whenever he did. I grabbed his hair and pulled him up to kiss every inch of his face like I did every morning.

"Lot of babies hmm ?"

"A lot. And I'm sorry if it hurts so much, baby, want me to kiss it better ?" That cunning bastard. I opened my eyes to see him smirking like a man with bad intentions.

I narrowed my eyes at him, "Are you tired of living ?"

He chuckled but it was low and his smile was empty, "Wake up now. I need to tell you something before we go." Just like that, he turned the tables around and pulled me on top of him before I could even register the shake in his voice. Was he...

Crying ?

"Kalki..."

"I'll tell you a story of a boy now, Kathavali. Listen carefully okay ?"

"Okay." My voice was too soft and barely audible as I snuggled into him.

"So this boy was twelve that night. His parents were out on business and so was his uncle. It was just him and his aunt then. An aunt he saw a mother in for she'd loved him the most in the entire family. She'd spend time with him, tell him she loved him, hug him, kiss his cheeks, call him her beautiful boy, stay until he fell asleep. Everything what mothers do right ? Until that night. He was up studying late when she came in and..."

My heart stopped.

No.

No.

No.

Just no.

"Kalki..." His arms tightened around me. As if he could still feel the horror he might've felt then.

"She told him to undress. Him first. Then herself. He was a child—well brought up, obedient, painfully innocent. The kind of boy who still believed adults were gods in human skin. He didn’t understand what was happening, only that it felt wrong in a way he didn’t yet have words for. Shame arrived before fear. Fear before comprehension. And when comprehension arrived, it was too late.

At first, it was just whispers. Instructions. A hand guiding where it shouldn’t. She asked him to do things that made his stomach turn, told him it was love, told him it was his fault for feeling anything at all. Some nights she asked for kisses. Then she grew creative. Her mouth where no mouth should ever be. His frozen in silence, taught early that speaking was dangerous. He never told anyone. Shame sealed his lips tighter than fear ever could. Sometimes she collared him. Dragged him across tiled floors like an animal that existed only to obey. It went on for months—time stretching into something viscous and endless. Then one night, the uncle walked in. The boy thought this was salvation. Light piercing the dark. A god at the door. Instead, the man smiled. An appreciative smile. It rang through his bones.

Then he joined her.

He said terrible things. Tested terrible theories. Cruel curiosity and untamed hands. He wanted to know the throes of a child's body when compared to a grown woman. And she watched. Encouraged. Learned new ways to break him. What followed lasted longer than the boy’s ability to count days. When the uncle died in an accident, the aunt cracked completely. What little restraint existed vanished. The rage doubled. The punishments sharpened. When the boy was thirteen, his father walked in on them.