“So, you are a…um…virgin, right?” he asked. The question hung on air for quite a while. This was not his first question. Pleasantries were exchanged of course. Compliment on clothes to discussion on what to order, everything did happen before the real conversation started. Also, he did take a long pause before placing the question.
It didn’t come as a shock though. I did expect the question. It’s the question asked to almost every woman these days, if not by the suitor, then the boyfriend, or a distant aunt, or a neighbor. Why would I be an exception?
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…I just…” he started to fumble in fear because the silence lasted too long.
“No, that’s okay. It’s fine to get your queries cleared. Well…I was raped. If that makes me a non-virgin or whatever they call it, then yes. I’m not a virgin.” There was no pause in my answer, neither was a speck of hesitation.
He choked on his drink at the mention of ‘rape’ but somehow, I expected that too. “I’m sorry, did you say that you were raped?” he asked.
“You heard it right, I was raped. A few hundred times.” I was quite calm but his eyes didn’t stopped bloating big.
“A few hundred times?! Are you kidding me? You would have been dead by now.” he said horrified.
I studied his face for a second. “So, you’re telling me you were never raped…not even once? No sexual abuse?” It was my turn to be surprised.
“NO! No, I was never raped, not once. No Sexual Abuse! But you said a few hundred… what on earth did you mean?”
I paused for a while. “Funny. I thought nobody could escape it. I couldn’t. Not once. I was raped every time I travelled in bus at night, I was abused every time I waited for a bus to arrive, I was raped by my colleagues a few times, my boss a few times, that goon at the end of the street, that unknown number who’d call me without fail at least once in a day, that neighbor’s husband, nobody failed to rip my clothes off me. And I could do nothing about it. I tried I promise but it all went vain.” He probably still could not understand what I conveyed, but he listened, in horror though.
“I couldn’t tell anyone, because there was no proof. I didn’t have any proof on by body to show that I was raped because it didn’t happen physically. They did rip my clothes off, not physically. They did touch my naked body, not physically. They did pin me to the floor and raped me until I bled out, not PHYSICALLY but it doesn’t mean it did-not-hurt physically. It did hurt. It hurt me mentally so much that the knife in my hand felt like it could lead me to a permanent peace, it felt like falling off a cliff would be so relaxing, invisibility felt like a bliss and my own skin like a curse. Only, I couldn’t tell anyone because there was no proof, no evidence.” I stared blankly into nowhere, recapturing every tear I shed for those abuses on me. It almost felt like my tear ducts gave up a long time ago. His horror did fade, but attention didn’t.
I took a deep breath, and shooting a broad smile, I said, “Nobody was ever able to touch me physically, when you run a virginity test on me, I will be a virgin, physically. But sorry, I can’t say the same thing about my mind, because my purity is destroyed there. And that my friend is the answer to your question.”
It was all silence again, I didn’t expect him to speak. He slowly got up and started to leave when I said, “You want to marry a virgin right? I’m sorry but there aren’t any left. Not a young woman, not a young man, not a girl, not a boy, a kid, an old woman, Nobody is a virgin anymore, if not in their own mind, definitely in that rapist’s mind. They’re NOT a virgin anymore. All you can do is just try to protect your wife from being raped again. And stay by her side, if she is abused again. THAT is why she is marrying you. That is all a woman expects of you.” I took my bag and walked out of that restaurant not looking back once. Somehow an unusual happiness flowed through me which said, ‘Now they know…’
This story that I wrote was published long ago in The Daily Mint.com once, But I thought I could share it with my readers, Please let me know what you think of it. I'll be post more soon...I guess!
