WANNABE GIRL LIBERATED WOMAN
Fiction Short Story
By
VIKRAM KARVE
From my Creative Writing Archives - a simple short story...
It’s now or never! The moment of liberation is before her.
Wannabe Girl licks the salt from her hand and drinks the shot, in one go, straight ‘down the hatch’, then a long swallow of beer that meets the tequila’s burn as it rises from deep within right up into her brain.
Everyone claps and cheers. The feeling is lovely, as if she is elevated to a higher plane.
With that one adventurous act Wannabe Girl has crossed the Rubicon. No longer will they treat her like a pariah. Now, she’s one of them. Now, she ‘belongs’. No longer will she have to hear those derisive jeers and taunts which pierce her heart – dehati, behenji, ghati.
As she levitates in the thrill of euphoria, Wannabe Girl feels good, real good. She’s not passé any longer, now she is a la mode!
“Hey, that’s not the way to have a shot,” Cute Girl says.
Cute Girl is one of those savvy sophisticated synthetic beauties who look real chic. She’s Wannabe Girl’s ‘role model’.
Wannabe Girl looks at Cute Girl, eyebrows raised.
“Come on, let’s see you do a Los Tres Cuates,” Cute Girl challenges.
“What’s that?”
“The Three Chums!”
“Three Chums?”
“Look,” Cute Girl says, “this is the best way to enjoy tequila.” She puts some salt on her palm, licks it off, downs the neat tequila shot, picks up a wedge of lime, and presses it between her teeth biting hard.
“Come on, you do it too, down the hatch!” Cute Girls says to Wannabe Girl.
“Be careful,” a voice warns, “It’s her first time.”
“Oh, come on, killjoy. She’s a tough cookie. She’ll drink us under the table, won’t you?” Cute Girl puts her hand on Wannabe Girl’s shoulder and eggs her on.
“I’ll show them,” Wannabe Girl says to herself, knowing that once she proves her capacity to drink she’ll gain real acceptance and respect in this crowd.
Bolstered by the alcohol induced dutch courage, Wannabe Girl sprinkles some salt on her left palm, picks up the tequila shot from the bar with her right, and downs the Los Tres Cuates in one go. As the shot hits the pit of her stomach, a rash of gooseflesh races up from her insides, shivers reverberate through her body up the back of her neck flashing into her brain and she feels her brain explode – like a terrible black orgasm.
The thundering resonance gradually subsides into blissful elation; Wannabe Girl feels a high, a terrific high she has never felt before. No wonder they call it ‘bottled lightening’.
Everyone cheers, pats her back and Cute Girl says, “Let’s drink to that,” and they all have a few shots in quick succession, one after another, binge drinking.
“Let’s hit the dance floor,” someone shouts and propelled by unseen hands Wannabe Girl is in their midst swinging away on the dance floor to the rocking music. The atmosphere in the disco is electric, fantastic, like she’s seen in the movies. She feels wonderful, mesmerized, and her inhibitions dissolved in the alcohol inside her, she lets her hair down and dances so unabashedly and vigorously that soon she’s in an ultimate state of trancelike frenzied ecstasy she’s never experienced before. Yes, this is life, the hip, hot and happening way to celebrate weekends – not sit at home like a couch potato watching TV.
Wannabe Girl dances continuously without break. The dance-floor is packed with bodies, rubbing against each other. The reverberating music, the sensuous atmosphere, bodies touching each other in the jam-packed wildly dancing crowd, the dancing strobe lights, the smoke, the cacophony, her exhaustion and the alcohol inside her – it makes her head swim and giddy so she negotiates her way, swaying across to the nearest sofa and slumps down on it.
Wannabe Girl tries to focus her eyes on the dancing couples. Everything is hazy. Her head begins to swim even more and she feels thirsty so she reaches out for the glass of water across the table. As she stretches across the table she sways like a pendulum and rolls back uncontrollably into her sofa. She feels as if her stomach is full of mercury, ice-cold, rolling, and enormously heavy. Her face feels hot and beads of perspiration begin to appear on her forehead. She thrusts herself forward again, trying to reach the glass of water, and knocks it across the table. Her brain begins to fade, so she leans her elbows helplessly on the glass edge of the table and helplessly lets her head fall on her wrists.
“You’re okay?” Cute Girl asks.
“I don’t know,” Wannabe Girl says, her eyes trying to focus on Cute Girl’s face.
“Come,” Cute Girl says holding out her hand, “Let’s get some fresh air.”
Wannabe Girl holds Cute Girl’s hand and follows her like a zombie into the dark. Outside it is dark, and Wannabe Girl feels a maze of hands groping her, supporting her unsteady body and propelling her towards the car park. She feels as if there are two persons within her as result of the baleful double personality that comes into being through drunkenness. The first acts as if without any brain at all, in a mechanical, vacant manner, and the second observes the first quite lucidly, but seems entirely powerless to do anything.
“Shove her in the backseat,” a male voice says.
“And you come here cuddle up with me in the front,” the guy in the driver’s seat tells Cute Girl.
The car speeds off into the enveloping darkness, and hearing a shuffling noise in the rear, the driver asks, “Hey, what are you guys up to?”
“We’re giving her a drink,” a male voice replies from the rear.
“Hey, be careful, she’s already had too much,” Cute Girl says.
“Just priming her up!”
“It may be her first time.”
“Really? Then she’ll need more priming. I’ll give her one more swig.” And he forces the bottle into Wannabe Girl’s mouth.
“Shall we do it here?”
“No, stupid. Not in the car. We’ll go to our usual place.”
“Shit...! Bloody Shit...!”
“What happened...?”
“She’s puking.”
“What...?”
“Bloody drunken bitch...! She’s vomiting all over me. Stop the car before the whole place is covered in her puke.”
They stop the car.
“She’s terribly sick,” Cute Girl says, “It was her first time and she’d had too many shots. I told you not to force booze down her throat.”
“What do we do?”
“Let’s clean her up and go ahead.”
“Shit...! She’s still puking. It’s bloody nauseating. I’ve lost it.”
“Disgusting...! Let’s dump her here.”
“Here? No. Not here. Let’s drop her back,” Cute Girl says.
“Drop her back? Are you crazy?”
“We’ll get into trouble.”
“Bullshit. She’s so drunk she won’t remember a thing.”
So they dump Wannabe Girl in a desolate spot and drive off to enjoy what’s left of the night.
Wallowing in her stinking vomit and shivering uncomfortably, Wannabe Girl stares vacantly into the dark sky, never so frightened, never so alone. She wants to cry but tears refuse to well in her eyes and her throat feels terribly dry and her recollections and images of the horrendous night just vivid flashes in a void. Her head throbs with pain and her body aches as she retches again and again till there is nothing left inside her to puke out. Feeling totally shattered and overwhelmed by unimaginable agony Wannabe Girl lapses into a zombie-like state of suspended vacuum.
She’s no more a Wannabe Girl ... She is now a Liberated Woman.
VIKRAM KARVE
Copyright © Vikram Karve 2010
Vikram Karve has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
VIKRAM KARVE educated at IIT Delhi, ITBHU, Lawrence School Lovedale, and Bishop’s School Pune, is an Electronics and Communications Engineer by profession, a Human Resource Manager and Trainer by occupation, a Teacher by vocation, a Creative Writer by inclination and a Foodie by passion. An avid blogger, he has written a number of fiction short stories and creative non-fiction articles in magazines and journals for many years before the advent of blogging. His delicious foodie blogs have been compiled in a book "Appetite for a Stroll". Vikram lives in Pune with his family and pet Doberman girl Sherry, with whom he takes long walks thinking creative thoughts.
Vikram Karve Creative Writing Blog - http://vikramkarve.sulekha.com
Academic Journal Vikram Karve – http://karvediat.blogspot.com
Professional Profile of Vikram Karve - http://www.linkedin.com/in/karve
Email: vikramkarve@sify.com
Nice one Vikram, It is so true how things slip out of control. I have heard real life stories on similar lines.
ReplyDeleteNice narration