Mornings and heartbreaks - the past - II

He grabbed his phone and dialling Shreya's mother started speaking as soon as she greeted him with a sleepy 'hello'.

"Aunty, I'm Vansh. I know it is an unusual time to call but it's important. Can you please tell me where Shreya's uncle lives?"

"She has a lot of uncles, which uncle do you want?", she asked, rather confused.

"Um... the one she went to stay with during her holidays when she was about eleven or twelve?", he asked, unsure if she would understand.

"Oh, Krish, yes, He lives in Pune but came here to attend Shreya's wedding so he is staying in a hotel. He was supposed to leave this morning, though, I'll send you his address and contact number if you like"

"Yes, yes, please, thank you", he shouted into the phone.

"No worries. Can you tell me what's going on? Is something wrong? Is she alright?", she asked, concern evident in her voice.

"Yes, everything's fine. Please send me the details soon"

"If you say so", she hung up the call and moments later a message arrived on his screen.

He dialled the number and placed it on speaker as he hurried to dress. The ringing continued while he dressed, and soon an unknown voice greeted him, "Hello?"

"Hello! Krish?", he asked.

"Yes? Who is this? And what are you doing calling at this ungodly time?", his rough voice carried through the phone.

Vansh grabbed his keys and wore his sneakers as he answered, "I um... am Vansh, Shreya's husband. I had something important to discuss with you, can I meet you?"

"Uh... now?"

"Yeah, it's important"

"Sure. I am in hotel Satvik, room no. 342"

He rushed to the address.

He was standing in front of Satvik - a pure vegetarian hotel and lodge in record time. There was no elevator, so he ran the steps to his room on the third floor. Reaching in front of the door 342, he rang the bell and took a breath.

The door opened to present the ugly sight of her uncle. Wearing a loose white vest that looked dirty on his broad, hairy shoulders and a flat, hard stomach, he offered, "Come in, damadji (son-in-law)", with a toothy smile and stepped aside. He had a bushy moustache and messy, grey hair sat atop his head.

"Did Shreya come to talk to you yesterday?", asked Vansh straight-away.

"Yes, she did. She was upset about her leaked sex tape"

"And what did you tell her?"

"Nothing, I just let her cry", he shrugged as he moved to sit down.

"Don't lie, tell me what happened yesterday", Vansh demanded and folded his hands.

"Don't use that tone with me, mister", her uncle warned.

"Oh I will use whichever tone I want to speak with a paedophile who sexually assaults their underage nieces", he accused and watched the colour drain out of her uncle.

"You... you know?", he stammered.

"Yes, and so tell me what exactly happened yesterday or so help me god..."

"How... how do you know?"

"She told me"

"She told you?", his eyes widened.

Vansh groaned, "Would you stop repeating and get on with it?"

"Yeah!", he drawled and then said, "So after that video blunder, I was leaving the place when I saw Shreya, looking lost. She wasn't crying but she looked about to burst, and so I approached her"

Vansh clenched and unclenched his hands, breathing enough patience in to not bash the guy's head in some wall. He needed to know what happened, only then would he be any closer to finding her.

"I brought her to this hotel room where I sat her down and gave her something to drink. She looked distraught and for a long while she just sat there, staring into nothingness.

And then she asked me the one question, the one question, I never imagined she would. She asked me, "Why?" and I told her. I told her why I did what I did, why I manipulated her, degraded her and put her down, why I used her", he paused and took a deep breath. With his heart in his throat, he started rallying the next incidents...

Shreya was sitting in an unfamiliar hotel room, her body shifting with unease. She glanced around the room to take in the mess, clothes spread on almost every surface on the room and empty dished lying around. She scrunched her nose but sat patiently as she finally asked the one question, the one question that always troubled her.

"Why?"

Why her? What wrong did she do?

Why did he want to torment her?

Why her? Why her?

"I can't excuse what I did, but I do have a reason. Not valid, I know, but in my sick mind, I had a reason.

Your aunt, my wife, was cheating on me. She was sleeping with another man. And when I confronted her about it, you know what she said? She said I wasn't man enough, I wasn't giving her what she needed and that's why she found someone else for herself. She said it was my fault", her uncle paused, pointing at himself.

"She demanded that either I divorce her or let her have an affair because she was not going to leave that man.

I loved her, you know? I respected her. Her infidelity was a slap to my face, I couldn't believe that someone I loved so much would do this to me, but she did. And though I wanted to murder her and leave her ass on the street, I couldn't because I had a kid, your cousin, and I love him.

I couldn't take away one of his parent from him. If she got the custody, could I live without him? No. And If I won custody, would I be able to parent him and give him the love he deserved? No. In both cases, he and I would suffer so I didn't divorce. I let her cheat.

On the very bed that I had made love to her, another man was fucking her and I couldn't bear it. I grew resentful. Hatred bloomed inside me, not just for her but for the entire female population.

Women were sluts, whores, who deserved nothing but humiliation. They were objects, nothing more. That was what I thought as I grew more and more resentful.

A month later, you arrived and with two females so close to me, my anger increased.

I couldn't do anything about my wife, but I could teach you. I could teach you how to be a good fucking woman, how to please men and show you your fucking place. And so, that's what I did.

I manipulated you, humiliated and degraded you to boost my own ego, to stroke my pride.
My uncontrolled marriage was taking a toll on me, but controlling you gave me sick pleasure."

Silence descended on the room.

Shreya held her breath. Krish's heaving breathing and the ticking clock were the only sounds that could be heard.

She never, even in her wildest dreams, imagined this to be the reason. She always thought it was her fault, that she had somehow tempted him, but to now realize that she was just at the wrong place at the wrong time? That it was no direct fault of hers?

She didn't know what to feel.

She gulped and confessed, "I always thought it was my fault. That I had somehow tempted you to fall this low"

"I know. I treated you that way, I wanted you to feel that it was all your fault, that it was your body to blame and not me. Because in my mind, I blamed you. I saw you as a child who would grow up to become a cheater, a slut, so why not treat you the same?

I punished you for the crimes you didn't commit.

I know I was wrong but my head was in a dark place. I was hurting and I wanted somebody to hurt as well."

An uncomfortable silence spread as she tried to swallow his words. She was confused, she didn't know who to blame, what to feel. The basis of almost all her insecurities arrived from the fact that she believed she was a slut, and she was the reason her uncle did this to her but now, that was taken away from her. Her whole world was off-balance.

What do you do when the very reason you hate yourself is suddenly pulled away from you? To be told that what you believed as absolute truth was actually a lie? She didn't know, and she didn't have the energy to find out because another important question grew in her head.

"Did... Did you do this with anybody else?", she stammered, her eyes wide and her heart thumping fast, imagining someone else going through the same. What happened with her, she didn't wish it on anybody and she was concerned that there might be someone else. Another girl, maybe one of her own cousins suffering the same.

"No, no, I didn't. When you said no, at first, I thought 'Oh! She'll come running back to me, begging me to help her fly and do as I bid' but you didn't. You didn't come back and that forced me to realize that I wasn't actually giving you pleasure, I was hurting you.

You were one of my favourite nieces back then, and when I realized how I had, probably, ruined you in your developing years, I felt sick. I felt disgusted with myself. Most days I'd sit alone crying to myself, revolted with what I did to you. When it got too much, I decided I need therapy and consulted a therapist."

"What did he say?"

"Well, he made me understand, to some extent, why I did what I did. I was broken, angry, and upset because she cheated but more than that I was pissed that my wife thought I wasn't man enough. And though in my head, I thought I did everything right and treated her good, I didn't. I never cared for her, always took her for granted and I realized, I didn't even love her.

But that one sentence angered me, it hurt my pride and because she thought I wasn't man enough, I wanted to prove to my own fucking self that I was. I conformed myself to every patriarchal definition of a man and then went overboard because my head just wasn't at the right place.

It wasn't her fault, but it was all mine. And then, I started working on improving myself and becoming a man in real sense. The therapist changed the definition of 'man' I had in my head and turned it into something right, something good and I will forever be grateful to him."

Krish grabbed her shoulders, she flinched and he dropped his hands. Instead, he stared into her eyes and with regret and apology shining clear in his eyes, said, "I regret doing this to you. I know my battles are no excuse for what I did to you.

I want to apologize, to make everything right, but I won't. Because I have to live with my mistakes, my crimes and I can't guilt you into forgiving me because of my apology.

Just know that It was not your fault. Never. It was all mine."

Krish sat down on the bed beside her as she processed his words. But her mind was exhausted and not ready to shift into a new dimension of thinking, so she sat without thinking as the memories of the years in that bedroom played into her head and the memories of tonight slowly started replacing.

Tears formed in her eyes and as the first one fell, the rest broke free too. Her uncle's hand soothed her back as she balled her eyes out and when he asked, "What happened?" she told him. Everything.

From the moment she met him tonight. All that she felt, her insecurities, her doubts, and why he shouldn't stay with her. Why he deserved so much better. And as her story came to an end, so did her tears. Her nose was red and tear streaks lined her face, her breathing was heavy as occasional sobs erupted from her chest.

She was pathetic.

She was worthless.

And Vansh deserved so much more. Vansh deserved someone better than a slut who invited a peeking stranger recording her between her legs.

As her breathing levelled, she looked to her right and stared into her uncle's black eyes with her watery, reddish grey eyes.

"Have you thought that maybe, it isn't your fault?", asked her uncle.

"Huh?", she replied, confused.

"Inviting a stranger in your bed, especially one who was peeking and recording you? Not a good thing. But have you thought that what Vansh did was equally, or actually more, wrong that what you did?
Sure, what you did wasn't morally right and not a safe thing to do. But you were already almost naked and aroused. Your brain was clouded, so you have an excuse but he has none.

He breached your privacy, not just peeked but actually recorded, which is a crime. And his brain wasn't clouded, he wasn't aroused before he decided to watch you.

So have you thought that you aren't a slut for inviting him, but rather he was a pervert for watching you?"

"But... but.."

"No buts, and even today, the video that got released isn't your fault. You never recorded it, and you actually asked him to delete it, right? The video should never have seen the light of the day. Then, how does it make you a slut?"

She scratched her head as her beliefs and his words kept clashing. "But why would he want someone like me? Someone whose body everyone has seen and what about the embarrassment it caused him and will cause?"

"What do you think of Vansh?", he asked and she blinked.

"Um...", she started while her uncle probed, "tell me, what do you think of him?"

"I don't understand what this has to do with anything", she shook her head.

"Just answer Shreya"

"I love him", she says and a soft smile spread across her lips.

"I don't know how to describe him, but he makes me feel things I never knew I could. Whenever I am with him, I feel safe and comfortable. I love his sense of humour, his cheesy pickup lines, his commanding voice and his sometimes goofy behaviour.
I love his brain and how he thinks, he is so reflected, intelligent and kind. He is..", she stops as her uncle clears his throat, demanding her attention.

"Wait, did you say he was intelligent?"

"Yeah", she agrees with a confused nod.

"Do you believe it?"

"Of course", she replies, a little offended.

"Then don't you think you should let him decide what and who he wants? Let him decide if he wants you or not?", he asks and she stills.

"I'm extremely sorry for doing this to you, but you have to understand it was my fault, not his. The insecurities and doubts that I gave you, why are you punishing Vansh with them? Let him decide for himself.

I would like to suggest therapy, it helped me and I'm sure it will help you as well.
And if you allow, I would like to pay for it as well", he said as silence descended upon them once again.