Ensnared

Tuesday before Easter was my first time. Johnny and Scarface urged me on. Cindy was doubtful. I looked into her eyes and saw fear. There was something else but I couldn't immediately puzzle it out. I hesitated. Something about the stick of Indian hemp languidly trapped in the fingers of my left hand must have betrayed my inexperience.

Cindy was a strange one. She had always looked forward to the day I would be like others. She fell in love not just with me but more with the type of company I kept. She always wondered how I managed to keep the company of such daring and adventurous guys as Scarface and Johnny; yet, I neither smoked nor boozed. Her behaviour on the Valentine's Day preceding my twenty-first birthday always gave me the shivers whenever I thought about it.

* * * * *

I was in my room. My mind couldn't crystallize any thought as I lay, stretched out, on my bed. I wasn't sleeping but I wouldn't claim I was awake either. I was lying on my back disinterestedly staring at the ceiling boards. The sudden ringing of my cell-phone snapped me back to reality and, instinctively, I glanced at the table clock. It was five minutes past nine o'clock in the morning. It was a Saturday and Val's Day. I answered the phone. 'Hello!' my unexcited voice croaked into the GSM handset.

'Sweetheart how could you allow me to be so lonely on a Val's Day? Please come by midday and take me', the breathless unmistakable singsong voice of Cindy returned from the other end of the line. She didn't call with her phone, for that would have amounted to an exercise in extravagance.

'What about your roommate?' I enquired.

Cindy sounded impatient as she said, 'I'm alone!' and killed the line.

At exactly noon, I was in Cindy's hostel, parading flowers and cards. Her door was slightly open. I pushed in, delicately cradling my Valentine gifts. Cindy sprang from her bed and threw spotless arms round my neck. The flowers and cards scattered all over the floor, forgotten. She clung to me like a piece of metal to a magnet. As she gripped me in that vice-like embrace, time stood still for the two of us. Then, slightly parting her lips, Cindy tilted her head backwards in an unpretentious invitation. But instead of taking the cue, I gave her a peck on the forehead. Cindy slapped me! I froze in shock. I was so stupefied that I could only stare at her in disbelief. When at last I regained my composure, I quietly turned to leave, feeling very humiliated. Cindy would not let me go. She held me back and exploded in an overflow of frustration. 'Sweetheart, I'm very sorry', she began. ' But can't you understand? I want you to hit me hard... I mean slap

me back with all the venom of humiliation you feel right now. I need to be subdued; stop being gentle with me. I want you to be very indecent, violent, and even brutal with me. Drag me up and kiss me recklessly; suck at my lips until you taste blood. I want you to be possessed by a blind lust... tear my clothes, tear them into shreds, push me to the top of my reading table and take me from behind. Rape me... defile me... fuck me until I scream for help'.

Cindy abruptly stopped as she struggled to catch her breath. That was the day of my initiation into the dark cult of Cindy's diseased mind. That was how it all began. I make no pretension to innocence. I had occasionally experienced erotic feminine passion in the past but nothing could compare to my obssession with Cindy. I obeyed Cindy's outburst like someone in a trance. I banged Cindy so mercilessly that she threatened to kill herself if I didn't stop. I stopped but that was the origin of my enslavement to the debased desires of Cindy. I began partying because of Cindy. I became an alcoholic because of Cindy. I started to smoke cigarette because of Cindy. I started exhibiting some animalistic sexual tendencies. Cindy had always urged me to try Indian hemp but I resisted her. I told her I would crack if I doped but she insisted that watching me go high would give her the kicks.

* * * * *

On that Tuesday, as I held the wrap of marijuana hanging half way to my lips, I looked round and saw the drug abused faces of Johnny and Scarface. They looked daft and stupid as they encouraged me to draw on the already lighted joint. I looked at Cindy and saw doubt. I looked deeper into her eyes and saw fear. I held her gaze and thought I saw something that had never been there before. Inside Cindy's eyes I noticed guilt and knew that very moment that I would smoke my weed even if only to make Cindy eternally guilty.