Sitting at the corner of the club, a man in his early thirties amusedly watched a lady dancing to the music in the background. He was fascinated. The lady looked at him through the corners of her eyes memories flashing through her head. Her fingers tinged in anticipation, waiting for the right moment. She sipped her wine and let it play around her tongue. She wet her lips and watched him walk toward the men’s. She was careful not to let anybody notice her. She stood up, straightened her dress and reached for her handbag as she sauntered towards the same direction he took.
When he was at the men’s, it was unnaturally quiet and he turned around before washing his hands at the sink, but who he saw was the last person he ever expected to see again. She pointed a gun at him.
She loved every moment of it. Revenge is sweet, she told herself. To see him cornered like he did her was a rare pleasure. The veins in her neck threatened to burst open when she thought of how he took advantage of her.
It was a cold night as the moon shone its brightest. He smiled inwardly when he saw her standing patiently waiting for him under the Jacaranda tree. She was fragile, inexperienced and barely 18 years old. When she saw him come out of his car, her face lit up showing how beautiful she was in her creamy dress. A wicked smile was planted on his lips.
“You look lovely,” he said when he finally stood in front of her.
He held her in the circle of his arms, so close she could feel the pounding of his heart under his shirt. She tried to pull away a little. But before she knew it, his leg was behind her knees as he twisted his body and brought her falling on the ground with him on top of her.
For his part he was conscious of her struggling beneath him and of hands beating against his chest, but he was tensed at the sight of her and her rejection of him only intensified his need. The burning in his groin was ruling his head. He pressed one hand across her mouth and with the other fumbled for the hem of her skirt.
She forced her eyes open so as to shut that hurtful memory.
“We can settle this, another way….amicably,” he blabbered away as his nose twitched uncontrollably. A habit that comes when he was not always in control of matters concerning him.
“That is what you think uh? Remember how you took my innocence?”
It was one of those rare occasions in his life that he was experiencing regret. He started sweating profusely as everything flashed before him now, how he wrenched at her knickers with such force that they tore away from one leg. He saw her wriggle under him, but he pinned her hard on the floor.
“It is alright, it is alright,” he persuaded her. But it wasn’t, for she was suddenly pierced through with pain, ravaged by it as he pounded away at her with hoarse groaning until, with one final convulsive thrust everything became still.
“This is my way of solving things,” she said through clenched teeth as fury spread all over her body.
She pulled the trigger and all he heard was a loud thud on his head as his very life ebbed away from him.
Her legs wobbled away from her and she forcefully sat on the ground next to his body. She wasn’t crying, the shock was too great yet tears came streaming down her cheeks. She sat wide-eyed, staring up at the ceiling. Her mind and body became numb. She brought his head to nestle in her arms and saw the fruits of her labor - he lay lifeless in the pool of his own blood. And she kept whispering in his ear like he did to her when he was taking her innocence, “it is alright, it is alright, it is alright.”
Her voice became a chant.
She absently said those words until people stumbled in on her in the men’s and even after she was thrown behind bars for life.
