Made to Order

Made to Order

Meera Rajagopalan

Don’t touch me. No, really.

A year ago, when you had just brought me home, you were gentle. You diligently cut your fingernails. You were careful when shaving, lest your stubble scratch me. You whispered into my ears. When you wanted me, you took me gently. And then you bought me those pretty little trinkets that you would put on me lovingly. All this, until about five months ago.

Now, I lay wasted. You are no longer gentle in your touch or patient for my response. Do you even realize how your unshaven cheeks poke me in my most sensitive places? Even if you did, would you care?

Last night - I doubt you even remember - you went on and on, furiously, as if in heat, shouting into my ears, until I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to simply pass out to make it stop. They say that most acts of violence against women are perpetrated by those they know. Know? I doubt you know me, or I you. They probably mean, “People they see every day.” I see you alright, every day, as you force me to look at you, even when I want to look away from your eyes, always eager and full of lust.

I still remember the first time you mixed up my two, erm, holes. Drunk and angry and violent, I remember you thrusting into the wrong one. Of course it wouldn’t go in, you idiot, I wanted to scream. Frustrated, you hit me against the bedpost. I am yet to recover from that. The proof is the scar I still sport on my back.

I am what they called me at my maika - the perfect combination of beauty and brains. That’s what they said in the ad you responded to. I was available on mail order, not male order. I’m good with language too, but how would you know?

You don’t care that I can solve complex equations, or that I can help you tackle life. You are but interested in one thing - that I be fast in responding to those demands. If you weren’t interested in me, fully,

12 Yours Truly

completely, why did you even bring me home?

Battered, bruised, and about to be replaced. Is this the future of my lot? Where did I go wrong? I did everything I was supposed to. Gave you whatever you wanted.

Now you say you want to send me back and want no questions to be asked about how I became so… useless. You are surely aware that in my “birth-home”, if you can call it that, there are many other daughters like me. If I go back, you do know that they will fix me up - sort of - and I will be passed on to another stranger who might do the same thing to me, don’t you? On the bright side, perhaps it will be a gentler person. It can’t get much worse than this.

Oh wait, it can. I could have been your wife. At least I’m only a cell phone.

13 Chaicopy | Vol. III | Issue I