BEING ATTRACTED TO A PLACE: CHAPTER ONE

​

He suddenly woke up hearing strange noises coming from the floor above. A long silence followed which led him to believe that he must’ve been dreaming and imagining things. But did noises sound such loud in dreams? The sound seemed to originate near his ears and then penetrate deep inside, into his eardrums. He could now clearly make out the sound of footsteps right above him, very near him. He moved his head to his left and was startled to find the silhouette of a girl just lying beside him. He slowly inched closer and found the girl to be fast asleep, just as he was a few moments earlier. Strange! From where the hell did a girl come into his bed? It appeared for a moment that the girl was known to him since long. He stared at the girl, straining his eyes through the haziness as far as his visibility would allow him and tried to think. He felt a hammering pain in his head along with dizziness. He recognized the distinct smell of alcohol in his breaths and in a moment some vague memories flashed into his mind. He knew this hangover will last him till late the next morning and sunk his head into his pillow in exasperation. But the thought of a woman lying next to him immediately aroused the animal instincts in him as he felt his underwear to protrude and a wicked burning desire to devour her body.

The girl was draped in a thin bed sheet and the outline of her breasts was visible from the little light which came from the foot lamps in the room. He lowered his head towards the girl’s face and kissed her forehead. Her skin felt a bit cold, but the smell of her body was addictive enough to draw him towards her and he could not help bring his mouth to her lips. The lips felt cold again and this peculiar type of coldness of her skin and lips appeared to be something beyond his apprehension at that moment. Perhaps the low temperature of her body was due to the air-conditioner running in the room, he thought. It did not matter to him in his inebriated condition more than the fact that the girl was being unresponsive to the act. If this girl had willfully climbed into his bed the other night, she must have been hired by him, as he could not remember to have walked up to the hotel with any girl. Also, he could not remember to have had such intimacy with any girl in his life who would agree to have a one-night stand with him. So there was no doubt that the girl was a professional. But in this case, she was not providing her services professionally. He pushed at the girl, gently at first, but when she still did not respond, anger took the better of him and he pushed her with force, rolling her over and hurling abuses at her for having fallen asleep. The girl remained still. Could she have got so much drunk so as to have lost her senses? He brought his hand near her nose and tried to feel the warm exhalation of her breath. She was not breathing. It was at this time that he noticed a stream of dark liquid emanating from her nose.

He immediately sprang up to his feet and in his effort to get down in the dark, struck an edge of the bed and tripped his feet. He held his right ankle in his hands and cried out in pain. Balancing on one toe, he searched for the light switch in the walls around him, found it at last and put it on. But there was no light. ‘Must be load shedding’, he thought and cursed his fate.  At this time the sound of footsteps returned once again, this time loud and clear enough for him to be sure that it was not originating in a part of his mind. He somehow located the intercom resting on his bedside table and dialed the extension number that immediately came in his mind. Someone picked up the phone but what he heard was only the sound of choked breathing at the other end. Someone was trying to speak between gasps of exhaustion, but nothing meaningful could be made of it. He could feel his throat turn dry and cold with fear. His body was losing its temperature rapidly, but in contrast to it he found himself drenched in sweat. A trickle of sweat reached his lips and he felt the taste of salt, a different type of saltiness though, which smelled something other than sweat. Could it be blood? Was it possible that he had cut his forehead while falling on the floor? He could not remember. Then how did the blood trickle down to his lips? He looked up but could not see anything other than a white canvass strewn against a dark space. Just as he was about to look down he heard the sounds of footsteps again. The sounds were growing in proportions and this time they started to descend from the floor above him through the stairs, take the path of the corridor and stopped at the door of his room. For some time there was silence. Whether these were minutes or seconds, he could not say. Then all of a sudden he heard the sound of banging at the door. He summoned his courage and tried to ask, ‘Hello, who is it?’, but no sound came out from his throat. Suddenly, the banging started to grow in intensity and soon turned into the sound of kicking. The volume of the sound intensified to such level that at a time it appeared his eardrums would burst. He closed his ears with both his hands and knelt down on to the floor, helplessly.