A destiny caught in the groins

The new item number is just too juicy. Voluptuous moves. Raunchy notes. Suggestive lyrics. It grips the audience in the slanting ambience of throbbing rawness. The choreographer, the lyricist and the music director have done full justice to the edifying undercurrents of her mystical curves. Everyone has had their own set of imagination about 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. She flaunts her sexuality with cast-iron certainty. And millions gasp for breath. They make as much noise as they do in religious processions with cheering conches and clapping cymbals. 

One thing, but, goes missing in all this glamorous show. There is a shadowy dot in the incessant bustle of revealing anecdotes. 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 head, beyond all outside taboos and evil talk of dirty acts like sex and all.

She has left unswerving trailblazers among young adults. 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 watch, 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 all of her. Not even a shred of clothing intervening. 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, the people seem to just hold onto it. They simply don’t want to forego 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 unchecked 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 exists in the chambers of lust in their ever-greedy minds, so she just cannot escape like this. They have to hunt her down. They have tunnel-vision about her and don’t want to see beyond.

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 mannequin 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. So the demonic retinue of the ghosts from her past follows her like a shadow clings to a person walking in the open on a sunny noon.

She is struggling to come out of the cloistered corridors, but the path ahead is nothing short of an ominous labyrinth. 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. It is like bringing night and day together: from porn to semi porn.

She wants to go further. She is an artist and works on her acting skills to the last ounce of her perseverance. She wants the normal roles like any other actress around.  But she cannot enter each and every brain to wipe the past lying 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. These are feisty tales of sex, murder, extramarital relations and scores of lusty intrigues. All this but seems to set up a prelude to the same urge to see her porn movies.

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, copy-pasted links of her online porn clips, gross invitations and still more. She no longer takes them head on and simply blocks them. But the words haunt her for long hours during the nights when she is practicing her acting skills.

With the big, bossy, disparaging world buzzing around, she sometimes gets judgmental on herself, and 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? It was a search for embryonic possibilities, to give life to her dreams, to make a mark, to become something. And with her inexperienced self, she jumped into the pool with incisive sincerity. The towering grandeur of success bathed her flawless skin with pointed flashlights of riotous recognition. She wrote sporadic and patchy tales of her feats on millions of craving hearts.

The art of sex! It was a wild river toppling the mountains, melting the slopes and breaking 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 laughed so innocently, with such unassuming vivacity that it instantly changed her persona from manhood slayer to a simple vulnerable girl. Even in her movies now one can hear 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 bell carried by gentle air down the valley. It’s but lost in bigger noises. This little insignia of her vulnerability, this tiny pause in the journey of the stormy mountain river, this interlude amidst crazily heaving waves is missed by almost all the spectators.

Most of the men, who comprise the audience of her present movies, have masturbated some time or the other while watching the porn clips portraying her as the temptress sucking away all lust from the planet. They own her in that part of their brain which stimulates desire. They 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, with its customary stimulation, is too big and overpowering. It keeps flashing in their minds as they watch her in movies now. They expect the same gratification. They look at something else, the character in the movie, while a different scene is playing in their minds. The more she tries to prove her acting credentials, the more they delve deeper into the spools of the Internet to grab handfuls of lusty morsels to satisfy their hunger.

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

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

“Well, it will be too revolutionary to put you in the cast. The role is too, too….,” he hesitates, rolls his eyes and draws his fingers over his bald pate.

His office is ensconced in luxury. There is solitary grandeur and cozy ambience well managed by a famous interior designer. She shifts uncomfortably in her chair. In the palpable silence, she can literally feel what is he thinking about at that time. Her past and that iron-cast image seem to have seeped and submerged with the pulse of the ongoing time. Its magnetic force is too strong for her to completely escape out of its orbit.

He is in the pink of health for a man in mid-fifties. His eyes are assured like they have the fully authorized assessment of any situations related to film-making.

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

She gets a pinprick and avoids a visible shudder. It is a fight to maintain her dignity in the halls of fame glittering with virtuous testimonies on the walls around.

“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, umn, 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 bold.

She avoids his gaze and is drawn to the reticent muse of a famous heroine looking at her from the framed portrait on the wall. Oh, that was the unhurried old world. Times have changed now. Her brief eerie is broken by his drooling words.

“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.

He seems to have set up his mind to the pursuit of a fancy that lies inside all successful men. They have elastic interpretations of the situation of a woman who wants a part in their success story. They are naturally inclined to pull it for their advantage. He is no exception. 

“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.

He appears perfectly at ease with himself, undaunted and untroubled by any doubt about the success of the project at hand.

“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.

She takes his serious expression even more seriously.

“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 closes 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 worldly charm.

“Hmmm!” he appears a bit irritated like somebody shaken out of sleep midway through a heavenly dream. “You know it will be too revolutionary,” his eyebrows are drawn taught.

She doesn’t say anything. For his age he is a strong, fit, confident man. He gets up to take out a file from the rack by the wall. He is aroused. Possibly he has got up in that state to show what is going inside him. 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 herself.

The office air hangs in suspension as if jolted out of its senses by a startling, telling remark.

He gets back to his chair, more relaxed now, sure that his arousal has been seen. The message is directly passed. His bald head is glowing purple red. 

“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.

She feels saliva in her mouth and swallows it nervously. The deep hum of sadness surfaces in her big eyes.

“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.

She is losing confidence rapidly.

“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 out of sheer excitement forced by the raw, scandalous adventure of transgression into her modesty, of being able to propel his naked instinct beyond the fence of law and decorum. 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 the 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 looks at him with unoffended, sad eyes. 

She comes forward again and shakes his hand very politely and professionally and backs out. 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.