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Short Story Contest 2019
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The Whore
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Javed’s throat was giving sounds of being slaughtered, then these sounds suddenly changed into meaningful sounds; Javed was slowly calling Shazia names with his eyes closed as he was intoxicated: “Shazia you charm me like a whore. The heat and intoxication of seven women is enclosed in your body. Will you make me mad? Slut, whore.” Shazia’s satisfaction increased as he called her with these dirty names and she became more vigorous. These were different types of abuses. He was admitting his helplessness and Shazia’s charm. This thin difference was like the difference of ‘young and inexperienced’ and ‘young and delicate’. It was like this as a child laughs when you hit him while boxing with him but starts crying in you slap him just with two fingers after scolding.
Shazia got the small bottle hidden in the drawer by the side of the bed out by stretching her arm with eyes still closed and took a gulp. She gave the rest in Javed’s mouth. She growled louder than Javed. He spoke slowly in Shazia’s ear, “Don’t be quiet! Say something to spread this fire.”
After sending Javed to office in the morning Shazia stood under the shower without locking the door of bathroom. The sight and feeling of her young body under the shower gave her a strange sense of security. All pieces of her that had scattered in the street were now absorbed back in her chest.
She didn’t complaint of Javed’s arrogance to her mother while talking to her on phone.
Two or three days quietly went by and Javed had forgotten the last fight and Shazia… Shazia who never thought of allowing Javed to bring or drink something at home even in the name of medicine was thinking how to draw his attention for bringing another bottle.
Shazia talked to her mother with full forbearance today instead of blowing up as before. Mother invited her to the Quran recitation at her home after formal talk. Shazia talked pleasantly and hung up the phone.
Javed was inclined again. The weather of trivial talk with fondling and kissing was on. The whore born in Shazia was anxiously waiting for coming out but she wasn’t finding any way of it:
“Javed, I’ll go to my mother’s house for some time in the morning after you go to office.”
“Why, what happened? I’ll take you there myself on holiday.” He said filling her in his lap.
“No, there’s recitation of the Quran at her home tomorrow. I’ll come back in two hours.”
“Ok, then take mummy or Asiya with you.”
“I’ll ask mummy if she’s willing to but can’t take Asiya because it’s a Quran session and she’s having her periods.”
Javed jumped back with a shock.
“What’s this vulgarity Shazia? You’re an idiot.”
“Why, what happened? What did I do?”
“It might be so in your family but not here. We were talking in such a romantic air and you start telling me about my young sister that she…”
Javed’s condition was like a hungry man who was about to have his morsel and was suddenly informed that there was muck mixed with food.
He frantically got up and entered the bathroom.
Shazia was watching the whore out of surprise that came out of her and was sitting near her on bed.
Javed succeeded in getting away with this thought after quite a while but the whispers of kisses and fondling were crawling in the room in such a way as someone trying to express the cherish of having soup after getting a fly out of it.
Shazia felt a bit embarrassed for giving Javed an emotional shock but Javed’s abuse turned this embarrassment into stubbornness. Javed too held his anger for bursting out on some other instance.
Shazia took bath and cleaned herself in the last days of the month after a whole week. She went to the market with mummy in the afternoon and bought some undergarments and some other petty things. She bought a red shirt with white flowers for mummy while coming back home. When Javed’s mother showed her wearing that, she insisted that she shouldn’t change it now. She cooked fish curry after getting free from small chores just by the evening and called Javed on phone:
“Why so? For how long will you make me wait?”
“What happened? What wait?”
“It’s nearly evening. You just come home. And please bring your medicine bottle too; my throat is also bad.”
Javed left all his work and started for home with his medicine bottle.
The ox dashed breaking its ranch today. The stream of Javed’s field was flooding. He reached home desperately. His mind was revolving in bedroom while he sat in drawing room after reaching home. His kind eye reviewed Shazia’s butts again and again and he half lied on sofa after heaving. Shazia unusually entered the TV lounge after some time pushing the tea trolley instead of food cart. Javed’s mother and sister followed her. Shazia handed tea to mummy and Asiya and whispered to Javed, “Food will be given in bedroom with the medicine.”
Javed’s mother wore such new clothes years after the death of his father. She appeared the lady of 15 years back in that red and white dress. Javed felt satisfied by looking at her freshness. He looked towards Shazia who was watching television once or twice with crossed eyes while talking to Asiya and mummy. She turned the TV off when Javed went to the bedroom saying that he was sleepy. Javed’s mother and sister went to the upper storey.
Most favorite food, three or four pegs and the hybrid of jenny and lioness… Javed was floting high in the air; but he threw a glance every now and then on the drunken Shazia who was making him fly by giving him wings.
Javed took her in his lap and in no time threw his favorite red shirt and white trousers towards the single sofa lying by the wall. The silence of the room started whispering. With his intoxication and Shazia’s cooperation he started descending the slope stopping where was out of his power. He placed his lips on the grapes placed on the silken tray after slipping down her bra.
“No praise for my new bra?”
“Hmmm… very beautiful!” Words automatically started falling from Javed’s mouth.
“I bought two today; the black one I gave to mummy which she was wearing in the evening and this red one.”
“Shazia!!!” Javed said in a faint voice as someone trying to call from a deep well with a short supply of oxygen.
Shazia picked up the opened bottle by stretching her hand and gave two neat gulps to Javed lying under her and started bumping on him. The connection between Javed and his tongue became weaker.
The sounds getting out of Javed’s throat started taking form of words’ “You whore; do you intend to kill me? I can exhaust not just only you but another of your sort even now.”
Shazia pulled the hair on his chest lightly and whispered in his ear licking his earlobe, “I don’t know why it’s loose on me but the sizes of me and mummy appear the same.”
“Ohhh Shazia…” Javed struggled fruitlessly like a body sinking in a swamp.
“Her breast is still enviable.”
“No one has for years…”
The sentence slipped of Javed’s tongue but the well appeared to change into earth’s core.
Javed looked towards swinging Shazia like a deer caught in the claws of a lion and beseeched in broken words, “Shut up you harlot or get away from me. Either you’ll burst my brain or in my own eyes…..”
Shazia threw an insulting glance on lying under him and came to more offensive style.
The old gun hanging with the wooden wall fell down with the jerks of bed and its old wood butt split into two.
Shazia spat the fear of divorce on her husband’s chest and rubbed it with her hand and said intoxicated, “F… your mother! You son of a whore! You should’ve given it a thought earlier. What’s the good use of begging now?”
Very good story, it actually tells what power a whore has got. It tells that sexual weapon of a woman is most lethal one. P.S= How Javed's mother knew sexual preferences/behaviour of Javed Grandfather.
6.5/10There are a few grammatical hiccups here and there as well as some forgivable disconnected plot points, but on the whole, a good story. However, when writing about morally and emotionally charged topics it's important to let your own indignation take a stand back. You shouldn't have to tell me that such and such is disgusting, I should find it so. There are many ways of achieving this, for illustration: You can either describe the scenario as impersonally as possible (cf. 'The Adulterous Women' by Albert Camus, which wasn't really about adultery but more so about a dissatisfied married woman finally coming to terms with her dissatisfaction which is tantamount to emotional adultery) or let your characters take the foreground so the emotions emanate completely from the characters (cf. Humberto Penaloza's inferiority complex and hatred for rich people in 'The Obscene Bird of Night' by Jose Donoso, or any story by Dostoyevsky, really). I suggest that you should read the works I've mentioned and try rewriting this story in those styles, just as a writing exercise.
Mod
Thank you for reading :)
Nice try but too much exposition. I second Jogi Badmash's view that sometimes you have to let the readers figure out what is really happening by giving them hints. Still a good try. Kudos.
Shazia watched the face of Javed, her husband, like a goof.
“You whore! Daughter of a whore!!!
“F… your mother…
“You mock me… whore…”
“Javed, I was just…
“You’re calling my mother…” Shazia could say only this.
“Yes, what else should I say you daughter of a bitch? Why shouldn’t I call a bitch a bitch? What else should I call her? Whore, whore… I’ll call her this a hundred times.” He was breathlessly calling obnoxious names to Shazia and her mother as he had been having all these names piled up in his throat for many days and he was looking for some chance or little excuse to utter them.
Shazia’s ears and mind had gone numb. She watched her husband’s fast moving lips and flaming eyes for a while and then exited from her bedroom clenching her fists in an automated manner.
Pain, happiness, love’s grief, miseries… emotions can only be felt and can never be properly expressed in words. She could only feel the torment of hearing such abuse for her mother and it was impossible for her to tell this feeling in words. She wished she could make Javed feel this or reply to him… but reply… she knew that Javed considered it a last degree insult of him if someone replied or responded to him while he was enraged and the last stop would only be divorce.
Divorce… no, why divorce?
She wanted Javed to feel this pain and pass through this torment which she was experiencing on her. Despite all this when tears started to show in her eyes, she bit her lower lip to stop them from rolling down her eyes at least till she went away from Javed’s sight. Shazia permitted herself to wait for Javed to correct himself or for finding some way to correct him though she didn’t allow herself to shed tear in front of him out of her helplessness and Javed to amend his attitude out of sympathy for her.
She had been like this since her childhood. When her father abused her mother, she used to go to her room and broke the toys which her father gifted her or ran her pen with such force on her notebook that the pages tore up with turning black with irregular lines but she could never say anything to her father. She couldn’t plead to her father for not abusing her mother. Although when her father used to bowl to Asim, her brother, with the swing of arm and to her by rolling the ball, she showed a dislike from her face and then started playing again.
The truth is this that woman can tolerate if at any age she is thought weaker than man but if she is considered inferior to man, she certainly turns to strike back in full though she might get destroyed or punished for it.
She endured it with her father but with Javed, not at all. She regarded Javed as her part, as her own since the second day of her marriage. There is always a regard in a relation, a pride in feeling someone necessary for their body and soul. She didn’t want to beg for her rightful share.
Javed resembled his feudal grandfather despite being born and brought up in city. He didn’t have any land or property like his grandfather yet he was very egotistic and considered others his slaves and servants. He couldn’t go hunting like his grandfather yet had a gun at his home that he regularly serviced every month and hung in his bedroom. He was not a drunkard like his grandfather yet he managed to bring a bottle now and then stealing the sight of his mother and telling Shazia of doctor’s prescription. The grandfather considered women footwear and Javed regarded them as a utensil.
According to Shazia’s mother-in-law, Javed’s grandfather was very harsh and stubborn but when it came to satisfying the sexual desire, he over-respected, humiliated himself, even cried like a child in front of her woman. How could Shazia tell her mother-in-law that Javed was very disparaging, harsh and stubborn but had a long list of desires to be met in bed and for fulfilling them he could cross every limit? The grandfather liked only red colored dress on her woman and Javed heartily bought red shirt and white trousers for Shazia.
When Javed left for office in the morning kissing her lips, she told him that she would visit market for some time with Mummy ji. Javed said smilingly, “My memory should stay longer with you when you’re out.” and gave another kiss on her lips.
But Javed was flared up when he returned home in the evening. There could be whatsoever reason for it: feeling insulted at something in office, fatigue, haphazardness at home, or strong sexual urge the satisfaction of which appeared impossible to him breeding frustration.
Shazia smelled that Javed was looking for some excuse but it was impossible for her to prevent it from coming by any precaution because Javed could get agitated at the dullness or stagnancy of life if there was no reason at all. And it happened so; Shazia tried to flatter Javed by chiding him slightly and asked’
“Why are you sitting so swell faced today, my lord?”
“You whore! Daughter of a whore!!!
“F… your mother…
“You mock me… whore…”
“Javed, I was just…
“You calling my mother…” Shazia could say only this.
Sometimes Shazia thought that he got irritated because he couldn’t do what he wanted to; and he didn’t get what he desired for which enraged him. Shazia got perplexed at it and sometimes became fully frank in her conduct and some other times became very covered and defensive. When she roared like a lioness in her den, Javed behaved as a kitten and if she acted like a jenny offering him her back down headedly, he became furious.
Javed was sitting in bedroom with a bad mood and lights out. Shazia knew that he now anticipated her to console him thinking it to be his right and that Shazia would seek forgiveness of him. He would neither come in the TV lounge nor would have his dinner nor would go out for a walk. But if she beseeched him for some time and asked for forgiveness, he would cede to her making her feel obliged at it because tomorrow was a holiday and he had much business to do with Shazia tonight.
Shazia didn’t want to console Javed and wanted him to do as he might wish but she knew it would further worsen to the extent that her mother would have to show up for seeking Javed’s forgiveness.
Shazia had to crush only her own ego while seeking forgiveness from Javed but when her mother did so and said to her on gate while leaving from her house ‘don’t care about me, I’ve spent my whole life with the abuses of your father, Javed’s swearing doesn’t much influence me now’, she felt as the pieces of her ego shattered all the way from her home to her father’s. She felt as Javed and her father were laughing playing with those pieces standing amid the boys playing cricket or standing among the women by the greengrocer or sometimes outside the car-porch of the neighbors. Javed said after her mother had left, “It’s not just about you but women are just worth it; they first misbehave and then start licking feet. They should show some sense at first instance.”
She was entangled in a debate with herself standing in the kitchen: “Shazia! Your mother spent her life in silence after listening to your father’s abuse all her life; how would she defend you? Now your father is no more in this world; had he been alive he would’ve called you a couple of more names. And mummy is only a mother-in-law for you despite being a woman.”
She tried to find some resolution of this sometimes with the inclusion of some reason into her thoughts and sometimes drove herself naked into utter darkness of hatred and during this submission a drop falling on the womb of her instinct caused the birth of a new Shazia. “Whore… Yes, I’m a whore… and a prostitute too.” A smile crawled on her face and a satisfaction and pride of a pregnant woman showed on her face.
She went to the wardrobe with quiet steps getting out of the kitchen shirking away from the bedroom door. She wore red shirt and white trousers leaving three upper buttons of her shirt open. She left her head-cloth slip casually on her breast and freeing her lower lip from her teeth, entered the bedroom giving way to her tears. Ego favors too when mind manipulates. She sat in Javed’s feet without any hesitation. It was compulsory to seek forgiveness before initiating any talk though she didn’t know what she was seeking forgiveness for. Nothing had apparently happened. Should she seek forgiveness for the unknown or for asking for the reason of is bad mood? If she sought forgiveness for such thing that wasn’t in Javed’s mind it would cause him yell at her that ‘how’ll you correct yourself when you’re not even aware of your mistake?’. So, instead of talking she rolled her tears to her cheeks and sliding down her head-cloth very quietly put both her hands on Javed’s foot. She was making her body and Javed’s desire her advocate.
It is present in man’s nature how to furnish the act of sex. Man knows how to do it even at the very first time without any experience. The same way woman who has some experience of it knows the cost of every move of her and how to get that. Isn’t it an irony that to most women the same man teaches to sell their style who they give everything for free.