Wet

Wet By Bissme S

There was a knock on my door. My visitor was a stranger, who was wet from head to toe.

“My car broke down,” he said.

“Can I please use your telephone to call my mechanic?”

Out of pity, I allowed him into my house. The moment my door was closed, he grabbed me. He pinned me down on the floor. Fear danced in my bones. I wanted to shout. But he covered my mouth.

“Don’t shout,” the stranger said.

“Don’t be afraid. I will not kill you. Believe me, you will enjoy every moment of it. Nobody will want you the way I want you.”

He undressed me, violently. He kissed me, passionately. He fucked me, vigorously. It was lust at the highest degree. And he was right…I enjoyed every moment of it.

When we finished making love, he wore his clothes and left. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t use my telephone. His car was not broken down. I really believed that would be the last time I would see him.

But I was wrong. The following night, he was at my door step, again. It was not raining and he was not wet.

“My car broke down,” he said.

“Can I please use your telephone to call my mechanic?”

This time around, I allowed him in my house, not out of pity. I wanted him inside me…. I wanted him to make me feel wanted.

******

Every night, we would have the similar routine. He would be at my doorstep, asking to use my phone to call the mechanic for his broken down car. We would end up making love.

The moment we finished making love, he would leave. There were no conversations between us. I had tried asking him questions but he never answered them.

Three years later, one night, the knocking on my door stopped. He disappeared from my life. I was totally miserable. Slowly, I realized that my relationship with him was not based on lust. I tried to look for him. But I do not where to begin my search. I know nothing of him. I don’t even know his name.

I told my close friends about him. They had a hard time believing my story. They believed he was a figment of my imagination.

******

Two years later, I saw him, again. He was in the news. He was a lawyer who was slowly building a career in politics. The prime minister had given him some ministerial post. Now, I could guess his reasons to stop seeing me….his reasons to forget me. Most people will rather have this country burn to ashes than have a minister who is a gay, running this country.

*****

His political career did not have a smooth ride. He and the prime minister did not see eye to eye on many issues. He had bravely opposed with some of the decisions that the prime minister had taken. The media had a field day covering their hostile relationship. Out of anger, the prime minister sacked him.

He became the first minister in this country to be sacked. His wife was furious. She left him. She had a dream to be first lady of this country. Her dreams had been shattered. And she would not forgive him.

******

Loneliness can be a terrifying experience. All his friends and families kept their distance from him. He desperately wanted some companion. He was  at my door steps, again. He was wet from head to toe.

“My car broke down,” he said.

“Can I please use your telephone to call my mechanic?”

I allowed him inside my house. He was crying. I took out his wet clothes. I hugged him.  I planted kisses all over his faces.

“Stay here tonight,” I said.

“Nobody will want you the way I want you.”

That was the first night he didn’t disappear after we made love.

******

He likes spending time with me. I made him laugh and he made me smile. He was a stranger to me. But I was not a stranger to him. We had met before. I had no memory of our meeting but he remembered everything. We were school mates.

“I wanted to talk to you whenever I see you in school,” he said.

“You were handsome…You were gorgeous….You were so beautiful. But I was afraid to do so. I was so afraid that you would snub me. You looked snobbish. You were a loner.”

I had to become a snobbish. I had to become a loner. I didn’t have a choice. My school mates were always teasing me because I was effeminate. I kept my distance from everyone. I avoided crowd. I was tired of people laughing at me. School was not a place where I went to make friends.

*****

There was a change in our political climate. We had a different party ruling our government. We had a different prime minister.

“Before the election, I promised you that there will be change,” says the new prime minister in his first fiery speech after winning the election. 

“I intend to keep my word. Nothing will remain the same. You will see a difference. Change is here.”

Like the country, there was a change in our relationship. The new prime minister wanted him back in the cabinet as his deputy prime minister. The new prime minister was a strategist. Hiring the sacked minister from the previous prime minister was a great way for the new prime minister to gain more popularity and admiration.

He could no longer stay with me. He did not want people to speculating about our relationship.

“I will not disappear like the last time,” he assured me.

“I will call you. I want you in my life. No one will want you the way I want you.”

I trusted him completely. But I should have known politicians are fond of breaking their promises. His ambitious wife returned to his side and I have become a forgotten character in his life.

*****

Eight years later, his political career ended, abruptly. His wife, a business woman, had given bribes to get some government contract. He had no choice but forced to resign. He was furious with his wife. His dream to be the prime minister of the country was shattered. And he could not forgive his wife. He ended his marriage.

When I first read his tragic news, I was jumping with joy. Whenever he is in trouble, the first person he looked for is me. I waited for him. I wanted to see him. I wanted him inside me. I wanted us to be lovers, again. But there was no knock on my door.

What stopped him from knocking my door? I wondered. Then I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and I wondered no more. I was no longer handsome. I was no longer gorgeous. I was no longer beautiful.

The End

P.S. I have just recently released a collection of my short stories in  book titled  Doubt. Wet is one of the stories featured in this book.  if you are interested to get Doubt please log to Doubt link

My First Book

I am happy to announce that my book, Doubt, a collection of my short stories  has been published recently. It is my first book. Thank you Merpati Jingga and Faisal Mustaffa for having tremendous faith in publishing my work !
Some of the stories that are in this blog are featured in Doubt. I am also attaching two reviews  from friends who have been reading my short stories  for some time now. 


* The first review is from  N. Shashi Kala, news editor fz.com a vibrant website that offers news and views across a wide spectrum of subjects. : 

“ I have  been a fan of Bissme's short stories ever since he sent me one  - albiet reluctantly - back in the late 90s. The themes - incest, infidelity, revenge (of the most twisted kind), murder - are all rooted in relationships gone wrong. Whether it is a girl who takes extreme measures to get her father to fall in love with her, or the tale of two brothers who become porn stars to make ends meet, Bissme excels in drawing out the essence of the characters and the twisting perceptions. There is no subject that is taboo in his eyes - we are all flawed creations of God and Bissme is keen to make us realise this through his stories. He takes us into  the dark recesses of the human soul and shows us the creatures we've become. It takes an insane mind to dwell here and that Bissme has chosen to build his home here speaks volumes. But his gift is in making these characters relatable and in some ways symphatetic despite the compact nature of his stories. 
I hope he eventually moves on to novellas and novels - his short fiction always leaves me wanting more.” 

* The second review is from Roslan Jomel the author for Namaku Epal Kuning  &  Selamat Datang Ke Malaywood


“Saya sebenarnya tertarik pada beberapa cerpen Bissme kerana saya dapat merasai kehalusan emosi. dia menulis cerita manusia-manusia biasa yang melalui kehidupan pada zaman moden. hero-hero untuk ceritanya hanyalah manusia tulen yang bergelut dengan teka-teki kehidupan itu sendiri. temanya biasa tetapi ditekan dengan penuh nilai humanis. sejujurnya, cerpen-cerpen Bissme sangat memikat kerana kesederhanaan penyampaiannya. lingkaran kehidupan domestik dan liku-liku perasaan pada setiap perwatakan, dilukis dengan telus dan unik. sangat mengejutkan kerana cerpen-cerpennya pendek, namun kesan yang diperolehi pembaca membawa jauh ke dalam naluri.
jika kita ingin mendekati gambaran permasalahan manusia urban, cerpen-cerpen Bissme menawarkan perspektif yang sungguh berbeza. bakat Bissme sangat besar ertinya untuk kesusasteraan Malaysia. keluasan kasih sayang, batasan perasaan dan apakah yang lebih bermakna pada kebahagiaan seandainya ia tidak memenuhi hati seseorang manusia? dengan begitu pintar dan teliti, Bissme berjaya menulis cerita-cerita yang sangat memukau kepada pembaca. tiada cerita yang lebih mengasyikkan berbanding tentang keanehan manusia itu sendiri. pendekatan sebegini mengingatkan saya kepada gaya penulisan Haruki Murakami dan Etgar Keret.” 

DOUBT

Doubt By Bissme S


I did not believe her. No one did. Except him. I remembered asking him: "How could you choose to believe her?  Don't you want to know the truth?"

Without any trace of emotion, he answered: "I do not want the truth. I am not interested in the truth. The truth is not important. I just want to be happy."

*****

I disliked all the men she had dated. I never stopped finding faults in them. No one was good enough for her. But he was different.

"Marry him,” I told her.

“I can see in his eyes that he is madly in love with you. He will keep you very happy. Trust me! A mother’s instinct is never wrong. The greatest happiness in life is to love and be loved."

Foolishly, she trusted every word I told her. Both of us learned the hard way that love is not enough to make us happy and mothers are not always right. 

*****

I was eager to be a grandmother.  He was eager to be a father. She was eager to be a mother. But God should not have been so eager to fulfill our dreams…. God should have known some dreams are not meant to come true…. God should have known some women are not born to be mothers.

My daughter hated every aspect of pregnancy. She hated being big. She hated the morning sickness. She hated her feet was always swollen. She hated having strange cravings. She was constantly irritated. She was constantly losing her temper. She was constantly in tears.

"I can't wait for the baby to be out of me," she screamed many times.   

When Mohsin was finally out of her womb, I thought her misery would end. But I was wrong. Her misery was just beginning. My daughter hated motherhood as much as she hated pregnancy.  

Mohsin was not an easy baby to look after. He was always crying. His wailing was driving her up the walls.

 "My son hates me,” she cried.  

“I wish I never had him.”

*****

Then, one day, out of the blue, Mohsin went missing. The police was called. My daughter told them that an ape had entered the apartment through the balcony, grabbed Mohsin in his arms and left.

“I was so scared,” she said.

“I froze. I didn’t know how to stop the beast.”   

Her story was outrageous. Her story was ridiculous. Her story made no sense. Our home was no where near a forest. It is impossible to believe that an ape would be roaming freely in a street that is congested with cars and buildings.

My instinct immediately told me that Mohsin was no longer alive. His body could be buried in some bushes. His body could be under a river.  His body could be anywhere.  

The only person who refused to doubt her was her husband. “The woman I love is not a heartless monster,” he said.     

*****

The judge felt the evidence against my daughter was circumstantial. The police made every attempt to find my grandson’s body. But they could not find Mohsin. Their failure had given my daughter her freedom.   

But the society was not kind to us. They were furious with the verdict. They desperately wanted a child killer to be punished. They desperately wanted justice for the poor helpless Mohsin. 

They treated us worst than a pariah. Almost every day, red paints to eggs were thrown in-front of our door. On many occasions, people spat on our faces.

Our neighbors stopped talking to us. Our relatives no longer visited us. Our friends ignored us. We were totally isolated. The hostility was too much for us to bear. 

We had no choice, but to move away from the neighborhood that we had stayed for more than 10 years. Ironically, the new house that my son-in- law had found for us was near a forest.

“Here, nobody will disturb us,” he said.

“Nobody will harass us.  Finally, we can have some peace. Finally, we can have some happiness.”

But happiness was not written in our fate. Tragedy strikes when my daughter was alone in the house. When we returned home, she was no longer alive. She was tortured. Her throat was cut. “A monster like her should not be allowed to breath” was written in our wall, in a red paint.    

The police was called. But they showed no interest in catching my daughter’s murderer. They felt the murderer was a hero, for getting rid of a child killer.

“May be an ape from the forest had entered your home and killed her,” said one of the policemen, sarcastically.

Her murderer was never found.

*****

Her death took a toll on him. My son-in-law was depressed. He could not believe the God had been cruel to him…. first taking away the child he loves, then the woman he loves. 

Then, one morning, he went missing. He left a rambling note that he wanted some time alone to deal with his tragedy.

Three months later, he returned home, with a long beard, happiness shinning all over his face and a baby boy in his arms.   

“When I was in the forest, a strange thing happened,” he said.

“The ape who took my baby approached me. The ape had Mohsin in his arms. He put Mohsin into my arms and simply disappeared into the bushes. 

“I cried. I could not believe Mohsin is alive. I could not believe Mohsin is in my arms again. The moment I got Mohsin, I rushed home.”     

The story he told me was more outrageous than the story that my daughter had told. Deep in my heart, I knew, the baby in his arms was not Mohsin. He had made someone's son as his own. He must have abducted the poor child. Some parents out there are in agony, worried sick about their missing son. He desperately wanted some happiness and the child in his arms played the part, perfectly.

So many questions were dancing in my mind. But I asked him, nothing. I didn't want the truth. The truth is not important.  I am not interested in the truth. I just want to be happy. 

I simply put on my apron, and said: "I will make us, a delicious dinner.  We have something to celebrate. My grandson has returned home."

The End