YOUR RECIPE OF EMOTIONS

Her first wedding night.

Passed.

Second night.

Passed too.

Then third.

Fourth.

And now, a week.

Somehow!

Anyhow, she skulked in the shadows into the kitchen, her mind lingering in the nights to come. A sudden chill would run down her spine. The burden on her breasts, every night, only accentuated the wound that etched her dreams. The intrusion. Or humiliation? Perhaps, both. Her mind often wandered to the sweet nothings before this bondage and now, fate grimaces at her face. Tying the helm of the sari to her waist, she poured rice in a bowl kept in the wall cabinet. "What good are daughter-in-laws for if not cooking?!" Sabirah heard this from her mother-in-law on her first day and was, therefore, familiarised with her 'abode' like the palm of her hands. From the spices to the ladle, the locations fixed in her head as nicely as a glove in hand. She handled the kitchen as if she belonged to it since ages.

On the chopping board, she slayed few tomatoes - ripe, unlike her marital relationship and squashed, like her body. She moved to the basin, held the china bowl of rice. 

Her core quivered.

He was coming.

Disquiet rang through the bowl.

Her intuition was never wrong.  Her palm froze on the bowl, as if giving it some protection.

It was nauseous. His hand coiled on her naked waist. Squeezing, rubbing and moving. She twitched  his grip and mutely, began chopping garlic and onion and carrots and potatoes and, she could chop all veggies in the kitchen if that could drive him away. But for her, gone were the days when wishes were low hanging fruits. He digged his rough chin in her shoulder, tightening the hold, while cold shiver bolted her body. "It's not fair," she thought angrily. It's indecent.

"Feels good, no?" He smirked her unease away. She stood silent. Crestfallen. Her hands trying to betray her passive mind. The hot oil was bubbling. As she poured the ingredients in the pan, he bit her neck. Her scream escaped through the spattering, sputtering noise. Precisely, her life in capsule when her voice buried in the cacophony of discomfiture. She jerked herself away from his repulsive grip with a huff. Turning her face away, Sabirah tried to escape. The veggies had caramelised by then.

Her thoughts leapt to the day when Sabirah was trying a family recipe in her flat.  Waves of pleasure had run through  her body when those succulent lips licked off the sauce off her lips. The charred smell halted her stream of thoughts. He had gone. Perhaps in rage. Only the coming night could  tell. The recipe was ruined. Her recipe. A nasty odor thickened the air.

How brisk and spicy that day was! The steam of the food blended with that of their bodies. Sabirah had looked in  her eyes with a heavy breath.

She smiled.