A Dive into Freedom

The new item number is just too juicy. Voluptuous moves. Raunchy notes. Suggestive lyrics. The choreographer, the lyricist and the music director have done full justice to her curves. Everyone has had their own set of visualization of her while working on their parts in the musical number. She gyrates in half thigh-length tight gold-threaded dhoti and beaded choli. She has perfect figure, finest curves, very charming features and flawless skin. And millions gasp for breath.  

One thing goes missing in all this glamorous show. It’s her innocent laughter and child-like simplicity of mind. When she smiles, it’s a pure soft outburst of merriment untouched by any trace of malice and shrewdness. When she laughs, it also is pure like a child does when amused at a small, simple thing. But this unsophisticated self is covered up by her dazzling sex appeal. Even if it shines at all, people prefer to ignore it. They have more important things to gloat over, to quench the hunger of mind, the famed Indian hunger of opposite sex in the mind, beyond all outside taboos and evil talk of dirty acts like sex and all.

She has earned quite a bit of name in the industry. She gets interviews now and then in the mainstream media. On such occasions she is her usual unsophisticated self. However, the person on the other end seems on guard, like peeping over a fence, guarding himself from some strange reaction inside. And all the onlookers know and understand the inhibitions running inside the anchor’s head. They hardly seem to listen to her for their minds are somewhere else.

Even the skimpiest dress covering the barest minimum seems to irritate the masses. For each artwork of dance by her watched on the YouTube, they go back to the gray zone on the Internet and draw out ghosts from her past. Yes it satisfies the lust in them, those clips where they can see the whole of her. Not even a shred of clothing. They gloat over her curves, the act, the ejaculations, have theirs and come back to watch her feisty item numbers.

The ink of her past appears too dense. More than the density of the ink, people seem to just hold onto it. They simply don’t want to forego of the image. It gratifies the most overpowering sense, sex. Her item numbers just fan the fire even more.  

It has been a massive effort: the journey from hard porn to soft porn.

The roles she gets, apart from the item numbers, involve sex, glamour, intrigues and extramarital affairs: the sociable, bridgeable sexuality unlike the naked rampancy of outright naked game.

She knows hers is a humongous task. The road from being a porn star to a so called normal film star is riddled with countless obstacles. Sexual zealots fire bullets from both sides. She belongs to the lust in their ever-greedy minds, so she just cannot escape like this. They have to hunt her down.

Only she knows the amount of effort she has put in moving from full porn to semi porn. It is like traversing poles at the opposite ends. From being a naked stone in full public glare, you walk down as they run after you, and you struggle to cover yourself with normal human sensitivities of respect and being treated like anyone around. People somehow resent it, throw jibes and try their best to keep their goods to gratify their lust.

She has to dilute the dark ink of the past. Wipe it altogether and write a new identity, to feel normal like any other star in the industry. From porn to semi porn. She wants to go further. She is an artist. She is working on her acting skills. She wants the normal roles like any other actress around.  But she cannot enter each and every brain to wipe the past there, allowing them to see her present and appreciate her art. The directors, who approach her, have ready-made, predetermined formula of a feisty woman, the woman for whom men fall, creating ripples around, of sex, murder, extramarital and scores of lusty intrigues.

There are trolls as well, the social media crusaders, who yank reputations to shreds, pour their boiling scorn and burn the images from safe heavens. There are abuses, lewd remarks, pasted links of her online porn clips, gross invitations and still more. She no longer takes then head on. She simply blocks them. But the words haunt her for long hours during nights when she is practicing acting skills.

With the big, bossy judgmental world buzzing around, she sometimes gets judgmental on herself. Finds herself at fault for getting into the porn industry to begin with. But wasn’t that the launch-pad for crossing the jarring atmospherics of anonymity, escaping her adolescent nightmare of just getting sold by life without leaving any mark, and that too with such flawless skin, exotic features and dreamy contours?

The art of sex! It was a wild river, toppling the mountains and their biggest boulders. Ruthless. Like it will never stop. But beyond the fury, at the end of falling over a huge cliff face, in the slow-swirling waters of after-fall majesty, the man lying sprawled, spent under her, she laughs so innocently, with such unassuming vivacity that it instantly changes her persona from manhood slayer to a simple vulnerable girl. Even in her movies now one can see that innocent trill, like a little bell around the neck of a mountain sheep. A little jaunt on the green slope and the whiffs of tinkling carried by gentle air down the valley.

This little insignia of her vulnerability, this tiny pause in the journey of the stormy, heaving waves is missed by almost all the spectators. Almost half of the men who constitute the audience of her present movies have masturbated some time or the other watching the porn clips involving her as the temptress sucking away all lust from the planet. They own her in that part of their brain. The want the sensation to remain stuck in their groins. They fight to stop it from sneaking into the aesthetic corridors of art and beauty. The image, the customary stimulation is too much, too strong. It flashes in their minds as they watch her in movies now. They expect the same gratification. They look at something else, the character, and a different movie is playing in their minds. The more she tries to prove her acting credentials, the more they delve deeper into the Internet to grab handfuls of lusty morsels to satisfy their hunger.

With hard porn blazing in their minds, they are as much as comfortable till her roles are on the margin of soft-porn.

She is in the office of a famous director. She has the word that he is finalizing the cast for his upcoming potboiler. For the last two months she has been working on her acting skills with a famous acting school.

“Well, it will be too revolutionary to put you in the cast. The role is too, too….,” he hesitates.

She shifts uncomfortably in her chair. She can literally feel what is he thinking about at that time. The magnetic force of her past is too strong for her to completely escape out of its orbit.

“The role is too mainstream for you,” he says firmly and winks as if to convince himself of his logic.

“I have been working very hard for this role. Please take an audition, of any duration, of whatever intensity required for the character,” she tries to stay normal.

“Oh, audition. You know it’s more about suitability for the character. You know, all actors have certain affinity for the role they are most suitable,” he is driving it hard.

“But it’s not fair. I deserve a chance to be tested. I, I…,” her determination is melting, the typecast of her past is too strong.

“Why work so hard to bruise your beautiful skin on a path that is new to you. By doing the kind of roles that you have done so far, you have earned name, fame and money. You rule their hearts like none of the actresses around,” he laughs and looks lividly.

“But, you know…,” he cuts her mid sentence.

“Ok, you can spread more pleasure than you think. Let’s have an audition,” he leans back in his chair and his eyes bore into her bosom.

“You know it’s a huge budget film. A make or break for many. It’s not that easy as you think,” he knits his brows and appears damn serious.

“Yaa I understand. But at least accept me as one of the competitors. I can prove myself. Hope you watched my last movie,” she sits erect in her chair like a thorough professional.

He doesn’t remember anything except the feisty dance on a raunchy number. Her curves swirl around in his imagination. He has closed his eyes and takes his memory still further. Away to the fantasy world of naked, unprohibited revelry. He recalls the minutest details of her anatomy. The shade of pubic hair, the genitalia, like so many others, still different, her rampant foray into sucking out all pleasure and spit triumphantly, and that innocent trill of laughter.

She is surprised, watching him with eyes closed for a long pause. She breaks the reverie.

“Sir, you know…,” she draws him out of that other world.

“Hmmm!” he appears a bit irritated. “You know it will be too revolutionary,” his brow-lines are drawn taught.

She doesn’t say anything. He is in his fifties. A strong man. He gets up to take out a file from the rack by the wall. He is aroused. She can see it. It’s protruding. He doesn’t want to hide it even, as if wanting to convey the message. She feels insecure, even sad and looks resignedly. On an instinct she adjusts her knee-length skirt as if to protect her.

He gets back to his chair. He is more relaxed now, possibly knowing that his arousal has been seen.

“You know it’s a fight. This world of actors and actresses. Specially for big banner movies. It requires talent, skills, luck as well, connections, image and even personal history,” he stops for her to absorb the bitter truth.

“You know ambitious young actresses go to any length to grab the top spot. And of course there are gentlemen who welcome such dedication,” he smiles, staring deep into her bluish brown eyes.

“Well. I, I am ready for …audition,” she mumbles.

“Then go for the audition,” he stands up.

He has already unzipped himself and the audition phallus is out. It’s an open invitation. A simple give and take. A short audition and the role for her.

He seems helpless. He is shivering a bit out of sheer excitement and the raw adventure. He has transposed the dream onto the plain of reality. It’s like grafting himself as the male character in all those plays of naked flesh.

Just the mere sight of it fills her mouth with the typical taste of it. She has done it many times in the past, with such gripping greed and madness that it felt like she was out there to drain all masculinity of its coffers of thirst forever.

He is shaking and imploring her to drain him out of his misery, of his frustration born of unquenchable thirst.

“Come on! After this there is no stopping for you. You will choose your roles,” he is gasping for breath.

There is a chance for her to be an actress, a real actress like anyone around. It’s tempting. She is holding the armrests tightly. But something holds her back. She has been working too hard, late into the nights to push herself further to come out of this soft-porn mould. And the deal seems like going back again into the past to redeem future.

She has a struggle ahead she knows it. She is determined to face it. She is not ready to go into the future with the life-support of the past she is cutting from her life. It seems unjustified, even unethical to both the past and the future.

She gets up and turns around the table to approach him. He is on the verge of fainting, with all those wildest fancies just about to clutch him into heavens of ecstasy. He feels her touch on the protruding phallus of his life-long hunger. Helpless he surrenders and closes his eyes.

He wakes up to the taut sound of his trousers’ zip. She has safely put his strayed self into the safety of his pants and closed the doors on it. He cannot believe it.

“Do you even know what are you doing! It’s over for you!” he flies into a blinding rage.

“Yes sir, this project might be over. But not all is lost for me. I have a struggle ahead and would prefer to work over months, even years, instead of taking five-minute short-cuts to reach there. That will take me back to where I started from,” she is very calm, and looking at him with unoffended eyes.  

She comes forward again and shakes his hand very politely and professionally and backs away. With even more politeness she closes the door behind her. There are tears of pride in her eyes as she crosses the floor. And a new wave of determination pervades her beautiful curves.