Claustrophobia

The business trip had been mundane and the day-long meeting with the middle-aged pot-bellied clients who kept ogling at her cleavage had made her even more bored. She badly needed a drink, and what the hell, she was in Goa after all, the nightlife capital of India.

Meghna had always been a woman who loved to take risks, whether professionally climbing up the corporate ladder or in her personal life with her frequent tough trekking and hang-gliding trips. Meghna was definitely a stunner. At just under 6 feet, lithe and loaded in all the right places, with fair skin, sharp features, and sea-green eyes, she was the quintessential head-turner wherever she went, and she knew it well. Her male colleagues drooling over her lustfully at her workplace never perturbed her but gave her the thrill of playing a seductive femme fatale in daily life.

She prided herself on her sexual exploits. She had been unfaithful to her husband, Akshat, so many times that she had lost count. Akshat was a great guy, but he did not have that reckless streak in him, which made Meghna quite bored. But she was very careful to hide her infidelities from him.

Then she saw the long-haired hunk at the other end of the counter at the Sequira Bar on Anjuna Beach. He was the quintessential beach bum with his sinewy arms covered in tattoos and a rock star air about him. Meghna knew she had found her quarry, and she loved playing the predator.

She started off by making small talk. Soon she and Jamie (that’s what the man called himself, not that she was really interested) were cosying up comfortably, necking on the couch. She realised that Jamie was a man who shared her taste for danger – he was the deep-sea diving coach at the nearby resort. Plentiful drinks followed, and Meghna was soon nicely tipsy and heady.

Jamie invited her to his secluded cabin at the end of the beach, promising her a night of passion she would never forget. A few more drinks followed, and then Jamie pulled out some cocaine, which he deftly sniffed. “Why don’t you try some,” he said, motioning her. Meghna too sniffed the white powder. It hit her like an icy blizzard, and she soon was at a different level of consciousness. Both of them then hungrily ripped off all their clothes and writhed in ecstasy on his bed as he fondled her breasts and explored her body sensuously. Meghna moaned in exhilaration as they began to make love passionately. As their lovemaking intensified, Meghna's phobia of closed spaces, claustrophobia, began to take hold. It had been a perennial problem for many years.

The cabin was small, and the walls seemed to close in on her, making her feel trapped and suffocated. She begged Jamie to open the windows and let in some fresh air, but he refused, telling her that he wanted to keep their lovemaking private.

As the night wore on, Meghna's fear intensified; she felt trapped and paralyzed with fear. She felt like she was g

Advertisement

oing to lose her mind. She begged him to stop, but Jamie would not listen. He was so drowned in lascivious lust that he had pinned her down and continued to thrust into her, harder and harder. She had never had such wild and satisfying sex in a long time, but the claustrophobia was really getting on her now. "Let's go outside on the beach and continue there," she pleaded with him, but he wouldn't budge. He still seemed oblivious to her discomfort. Meghna, despite her drug-induced, trance-like condition, began to realize that she had made a terrible mistake. She stiffened up and tried to push him off. Finally, Jamie seemed to relent and got up. He gently picked her up and carried her in his muscular arms. But instead of turning towards the main door, he turned towards a large closet inside the cottage.

Meghna's heart raced as Jamie pushed her into the closet and shut the door behind them. She was now trapped in a small, enclosed space with a man she barely knew. Her phobia kicked in full force, and she began to hyperventilate. Jamie, however, was not concerned. He seemed to be enjoying the power he had over her. He pulled her close and whispered in her ear, promising to make her forget all her fears.

But Meghna couldn't forget. She was consumed by dread, and it only grew worse as Jamie began to make love to her again, this time in the cramped closet. She felt like she was suffocating, like the walls were closing in on her and her faculties were shutting down. The deadly cocktail of primordial lust, extreme claustrophobia, alcohol, and cocaine was too much for her to bear, and her mind finally blew out.

Jamie too seemed to realize it as she suddenly stopped struggling and went limp. For a moment, he panicked. But once he realized that she was breathing but seemed to be in a daze, he got up, went out of the closet, and quickly took out his phone and messaged someone. His phone dinged back as an alert came for Rs. 25,000/- being transferred into his account.

Akshat stood at the reception counter of St Xavier’s Home for the Insane, filling out a sheaf of forms required to admit Meghna. The psychiatrist had ruled her practically beyond recovery as her mind had completely snapped, and she seemed to be in a perpetual stupor, not identifying anyone, let alone uttering a word, despite the best attempts at medication and therapy.

As Meghna was finally wheeled into her bed, Akshat requested some private time with her. Once the nurse left, Akshat looked at Meghna and smiled. It was not a pleasant smile, but rather a crooked one. "I always knew about your paranoia of closed spaces. But how did you even think that I didn't know your other dark secret? One had to be blind and deaf not to know about your shameless philandering. See what happened when I just made sure these two quirks of yours got together…my revenge was really very simple." She looked back blankly through glassy eyes, lying in her drab hospital dress.