The Body Myth

by Rheea Mukherjee

caraway

idiosyncratically

let sunset bleed into midnight.

He chuckled into his remaining iced latte.

An inexplicable rage was rising. I wanted Sara, but at the same time I wanted to shake her, I wanted to tell her she was stupid, annoying, fake, and a liar. And in that moment I wanted to shake Rahil too, for being so inconsistent with me. Flipping between talking about Sara’s real issues and then flipping back to validating them. And then I wanted to shake myself, because none of these feelings made any sense.

Bringing in the potential for sex with a man can reimagine the architecture of your home.

The sex was needed, our bodies warmed and wanting, but the deed itself was perfunctory. We were searching for something else. Sex was the only way we knew how to look together for it. And we looked for hours. We withheld on intercourse for the longest time, knowing well it would last only minutes and signal an end to the longing, the hands in the hair, the pause in time.

There was something endearing about him when he sat expressionless.

I didn’t know whether to sit with him or to encourage him to leave. Did he want to leave? Was he sitting around to make sure I didn’t think it was only about a quick fuck?

didn’t know whether to sit with him or to encourage him to leave. Did he want to leave? Was he sitting around to make sure I didn’t ...

Rahil asked with an unsettling amount of firmness.

The language of forbidden love has no common book. It’s a series of coded sentences, its meaning created in the head of an individual and choked out to the other. Words that dangle between lovers, each of them finding the meaning they want to hear at that time.

Words that dangle between lovers, each of them finding the meaning they want to hear at that time.

I wasn’t ashamed of what I had done with Rahil, so there was no guilt to show on my face.

Even though I knew why Rahil hated her parents and even though I knew they were overprotective nuts, I felt an irrational anger rise in support of Sara. How dare Rahil hate her parents?

Our kisses were often sloppy and always long. Different from the needy, thrusting tongue of a man. I could have kissed her for hours; I could have meditated sucking gently on her tongue.

I rested my cheek on his stubble. I buried my nose into his neck. I hated how good it felt. How safe. How Ketan-like.

Rahil’s eyes had the ability to meet your stare back with an uncomfortable sharp focus. Like he had trained himself to stare back with confidence no matter what you said, what you questioned.

nuzzle

his tongue whipping the side of my ear.

we tried to make love again, but lazily settled into each ot...

tell your story with both subjectivity and objectivity. Your words must be thorough, ironed, inspected, and then catapulted into the arms of the world. Only then will the universe know what to do with you.

I imagined them hiding smirks in between conversations. I could swear I saw half-smiles directed at each other. Like they knew. They knew that I belonged to them, in different capacities.

On rare days, I felt guilty about wanting to threaten their marriage.

What makes a relationship enough?

Why did I enjoy her discomfort so much?

pigeonhole

This letter bears the soul of a simple, everyday obsession, with no call to action, no sentimentality, and no other fragments to build a story of friendship between Foucault and Guibert.

When I read those men and women, they gave me a strange comfort, an inkling that nothing was too dark, too out of place, too absurd. And when you feel that you can have a place in this world no matter how isolated you feel, then there is indeed a sense of liberation.

He believed that the twentieth century brought science to mental illness. Right before that, the crazies, the sinners, the miscreants, and the dubious were put away and for all other practical purposes isolated.

miscreants,

I could see her point of view now. Love was not an easy thing to dole out in exchange for the ordinariness offered to her by life. An ordinary daughter or an extraordinary melancholy? At least a piercing sadness could make her feel. Just

counsel on the things

tune of the lake song started to whirl in my head.

both parties were neither desperate to get married nor opposed to the idea. My

They’d talk on the phone for hours, about movies, history, and Appa’s job.

giggled under the blankets.

Appa spent too much time telling me about this fight, leading me to wonder if it was just a white lie.

I sat very still. I could hear my breath.

just did her in.

his feet on the ground were tapping to some unknown rhythm in his head.

straitlaced

Why did we keep our most obvious secrets away from each other? Because this is how we thrived, how we bloomed. Once you start talking about things, jealousy emerges and everything becomes a mess.

tided each other over

knew it was an unsaid game with unsaid rules.

she flinched and swatted at my hand.

coddling:

me I overthink to the point of creating delusions, and that overthinking is a process of self-destruction. I agree with this in theory, but with Sara and Rahil it was different. Sometimes overthinking is as utilitarian as a seasoned chess player studying her board for thick minutes before she makes her next move.

Rahil had resigned himself to the corner of the kitchen,

goopy