The Fowler and His Net – Chapter 9

A strange pungent smell woke him in the midst of a wild dream. He was Gulliver to a thousand, hundred legged creatures made from just breasts and vagina. They swarmed over him, drooled from their nipples and laid tracks on his torso like snails. He was floating and the water level rose. In his dream he knew that drowning would cause that immense relief that he so, so craved. However, it was not to be and he woke with a start.

He had no conception of the duration of his sleep, but he felt refreshed and momentarily unaware of his confinement. This changed when the chains which led from his wrists to the posts behind him tinkled.

A shadow flickered lightly on the ceiling. ‘Nano geyani,’ a musical, foreign sounding voice uttered. ‘sum marum bajaka jagyum che?’

Candles lit the cellar bathing the inside with a soft yellow, orange glow. The dancing shadow moved on the ceiling, indicating that it’s owner was to make itself known. Despite the tranquillity of the light and the new warmth in the cellar, Gary was fearful. He had grown deeply distrustful of any kindness that came his way in this house. Sleep had come the night before while cursing the very moment he had clamoured for the job of mending Mrs. Barton’s pool and now he thought he understood the meaning of what was happening to him. The middle and upper class community in the area was obviously very close knit and the story of his poor behaviour has spread secretly between them. A plan had been prepared, and like the weak idiot he was, he had fallen into it.

It was then, no great surprise when he heard the beautiful voice of Mala Gupta resonating in his cell. ‘Good morning Gary. I hope that you are not in pain too much.’

The torments of the previous day came to mind and he tested his sense of feeling by wiggling his feet. The chinking of his restraints coincided with the sensation of the soft ankle straps.

‘You have deep bruises, I have been tending to them for some time now.’

‘I want to get out of here.’ Gary murmured.

‘Time, Gary. In time.’ Mrs. Gupta stood and drifted her hand over the top of his brow, which twitched to avoid the contact. ‘Oh, what have they been doing to you? You were so beautiful, so sensual. Such a loving boy.’

He remembered Mala Gupta from the work job he had done for her. She had seemed kindly and flirtatious, not unlike the expensive prostitutes that he had attempted to solicit in Germany. Then, he had toyed with the idea of sacrificing three weeks of pay for that experience, but had congratulated himself on his decision to abstain – after all, there was only so much value in a very pretty face and good manners if the object was to viciously back-end them anyway. Now however, Mala un-faded into the room over him and lightly tousled his hair. ‘What are you gonna do to me?’ He asked.

‘Do to you?’ She questioned. ‘We shall do this together Gary. We shall both go on a journey, an experience.’ His face tightened and turned away from her. ‘Your body, as it is, will turn into a vessel that will sail an ocean, Gary, and it must be kept in the here and now for us both to be on board.’

‘What?’ Gary cried as he tried to make sense of what she said, ‘why can’t you just let me go?’

‘Gary, your physical existence is nothing. We are going to places that your body cannot go, to the land of dreams, and we are going together.’

‘That’s crap!’ Gary shouted, intimidated by the notion, ‘That’s crap!’

‘Obviously, I will need to show you.’ She soothed, and removed the quilt that maintained whatever warmth he still possessed. She tilted her head at his spread-eagled nakedness.. ‘So beautiful, so elegant.’ She hushed. ‘Soon, Gary, time will have a different quality, it will shape itself and move like water, all around us.’

Gary thought to himself of how much like a drunken night out it sounded and grew even further suspicious of her intent. ‘What do you mean, what are you going to do?’

Mrs. Gupta broke into a smile and dropped her hand to his chest hair. Gary, started and she ran her fingers through it. ‘The earth is full of goodness. It feeds us and warms us and provides us with what we need. My lord began as a handful of earth Gary, and the sun and the rain gave him the strength that his mother could not and his father would not. What we are to share, “Maro Prema” is given to us by my Lord and our earth.’

‘What was this namby nonsense?’ thought Gary. Though he was distrustful and fearful of those around him, he remained firmly fixed in the here and now. What he knew was that he was a captive, was being physically abused and wanted to use violence to revenge himself. There was also the issue with his inner sexual desire, which rumbled beneath like a dormant volcano, one that was having it’s neighbourhood evacuated.

‘It is said that the child of my Lord, Satoshi Maa, wore white flowers in her hair and sent her lovers to heaven with their scent.’ Mrs. Gupta drew a tapered quill from her pocket and began to burn the end of it from the nearest of the lighted candles.

Gary thought for a moment, Mrs. Gupta had seemed to be a reasonable woman, maybe there was a chance that she could release him from these restraints. Once done, he was sure that he could fight his way out of a house full of women.

‘Aye, Mrs. Gupta, but I need to stretch my legs for a bit, you don’t think you could, like, undo these cuffs, eh?’ It was a hopelessly naïve request.

‘But, those restraints are not the ones I must release, Gary. It is those that anchor your soul that I must dissolve.’ His heart sunk as he understood that he must be subjected to another ordeal.

‘That one was for the wind. This one,’ she held another quill, a red one, which she lit and held fanned out with the first, ‘is for the sun.’ She pulled another from her hair, ‘and this one is for my Lord, my truth, my life.’

The first quill, though it had released grey smoke, seemed quite inert to his senses, the second, which produced pink smoke, tasted sweet in the still confines of the cellar. The third however, when lit, obviously had a strong narcotic quality. For the first inhalation sent Gary spinning above where he lay. As his eyes rolled, so Mala Gupta joined him.

‘Yes, Gary. It is sweet is it not. It has saved so many in need, yet damned so many who were not.’ While he was still on a state of understanding, there were certain factors that he found puzzling. The flowers he could see on the floor, the soft lightness and freedom, the impression that Mrs. Gupta was in his arms. It did not make sense.

‘We can only begin today Gary,’ Mala whispered. ‘For my Lord’s garden only reveals itself in the mist.’

Mrs. Gupta herself had become a flower, her face distorting into petals, and her body into the stem, yet he was not fearful of this transition. The new apparition entwined itself with him as the ceiling above him clouded and the flower strewn floor erupted into life. He was suddenly in a different place, warm, yet alone. Mala’s voice was behind him. ‘My lord will show himself to you in a way that only you will know.’ His transfigured self turned, to be greeted by nothing more than lush foliage. ‘But, only when you cannot be sated, will he return your love.’

As Gary turned his mind to what had just been said to him, he felt a tremor beneath the soles of his feet and a rush of wind across his face. ‘I must take you to a height of ecstasy. My lord desires it.’ Gary looked down at two faces which he did not know at first, that both gazed up at him lovingly.

The darker exotic face, he, at first imagined to be Mrs.