by Neil D'Silva
Maya’s
New Husband
An Indian Horror Thriller
NEIL D’SILVA
Maya’s New Husband is a work of fiction. Names, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any person living or dead is purely coincidental.
This book is meant for mature readers. It contains elements of gore, strong language, nudity, and intercourse.
Neil D’Silva asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
© 2015 by Neil D’Silva
http://www.NeilDsilva.com/
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Artwork: Omkar Pathare
Graphics: Nikhil Mahajan
Reviews
With car-crash magnetism, this book will raise the hairs on the back of your neck from page one. It is unapologetically grotesque, gut-twisting, lip-biting—(literally)—and for any horror fan will be very difficult to put down. There are moments which might draw up images of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, only this story has one of those refreshing things called a plot, backing the abomination up.
~ Galina Trefil, a US author and reader
With Maya’s New Husband, Neil has broken all stereotypes – there are no ghosts, no zombies, no bloody hands bursting through walls and no headless torsos falling from closets. But it’s horror all right.
~ Neelesh Inamdar on Neel Loves Books
Neil has an artful way with words. When he writes about fear, dread and evil, you really feel it. When he writes of longing, struggle and pain, you are in no doubt. For an author to have such skill in his debut novel is both encouraging and frightening.
~ Shreya Ganguly, professional reviewer
This is my first horror thriller but I loved it.
~ Himani Gupta, professional reviewer
Maya’s New Husband kept me riveted throughout all chapters as the author wove a horrifically wonderful story until the end. A must read for any horror fan.
~ Enkay Durand, a US author and reader
The characters are engaging. It was really great to read a book with a mostly female cast that were all likable. They gossiped, talked about sex, loved each other, and felt real.
~ Adrean Messmer on Splatterhouse 5
Very well-written and a very descriptive book. Thoroughly researched, beautifully crafted and nicely plotted, this book is a must read for any horror fan.
~ Aindrila Roy, author and reader
I wouldn’t say the book is lovely or beautiful, no sir, the book is awesome. I was so involved in it that I dreamt of aghoris all night long. The research the author has put into the book is good and intense.
~ A reader on Amazon.com
All I can say is wow... this book was crazy from the first page to the very last. It had so many gruesome and horrible things in it I found it hard to continue with it at times.
~ Boundless Book Reviews
I found the insights into Indian culture and ways of thinking very interesting, and I enjoyed the portrayal of the female characters. I enjoyed the unconventional relationship between Maya and Bhaskar.
~ A US reviewer on Goodreads.com
Bold, vividly described, fast-paced and very fresh. Neil has done good research on the topic which is quite underexplored. I found it very hard to close my eyes at night for the cliff-hanger was nerve-racking!
~ A reader on Goodreads.com
The descriptions in the book are really good and Neil manages to conjure up vivid imagery which is very important for an explicit horror story. Definitely worth a read.
~ A reader on Goodreads.com
Visit the Goodreads page of Maya’s New Husband to leave your review.
From the Author
The writing bug bit me quite early in my life. I wrote my first book when I was in Grade 7. It was a humor tale written initially on a writing pad and then on my father’s typewriter. As I bound those rough pages with a stapler, I saw a book taking shape; and as its pages unfolded I saw how a figment of my imagination had become a concrete entity. There is rarely another joy that compares with seeing your creative thought taking a concrete shape. Some have likened this joy to what a mother experiences when she holds her firstborn for the first time. But all I can say is: That was one of my greatest pleasures, and it set me on a path of no return.
Life had other plans en route, and I found myself indulging myself with my other passion—teaching—for over two decades. I still teach, and with a similar passion as I began with, but I need to showcase my other side to the world as well. For a number of years, I dabbled with freelance writing. Though my writing was appreciated by clients from all over the world, I found myself speaking someone else’s voice. At a point, the dam burst and I could no longer continue as a freelance writer. I resolved that if I would ever write again, it would be only for myself.
Having lived in this wonderful metropolis called Mumbai all my life, I have been fortunate to meet a huge variety of people, and partake of several experiences. The city is always on the move, and though that’s a cliché, it’s quite true. There’s never a silent moment when you are in Mumbai. Even in the dead of the night when I sometimes find myself writing, I sense things stirring outside. Stories are being made here at every instant, so many stories that will be lost for want of someone to give them a voice. This prompted me to create a blend—of my penchant for writing and my astute sense of observation of things around me—and it is this blend that propels me to weave my yarns.
Maya’s New Husband is my debut novel and it is born out of such a mélange. They are my experiences in this city that have inspired this tale, and my words that have shaped it. This is the first book in a trilogy, which I call as The Beast Within Trilogy. The other two stories, titled Sapna’s Bad Connection and Kalki’s Bundle of Joy will be out in succession after this. Together, they speak the tales of three different women of Mumbai trapped in difficult relationships, some of them their own doing, some imposed upon them; and their struggles to wrangle out of them.
You may find out more about me on my website at NeilDSilva.com, where I periodically put up short stories, stories that really need to be told. Yes, I do believe in that: Stories just happen; I aspire to be their humble voice.
- Neil D’Silva
http://NeilDSilva.com/
For my wife Anita, always my first reader and critic.
Table of Contents
0. Prologue
PART ONE – Opposites Attract
1. That Awful Stink
1.5 Kidney Beans on Toast
2. Clenched Fists
2.5 Quarry on the Cutting Board
3. Losing Hearts
3.5 A Carnal Passion
4. Over the Hill
4.5 Respite for a Hog
5. More Exciting the Second Time
5.5 Quickie
PART TWO – Marriages Are Made
6. The Disfigured Monkey
7. Aroma of Eggs
8. Placed Like a Pastry
9. Flirting with Danger
10. Goat Walking into Slaughter
11. A Handicapped Bitch
12. Tattoo of Death
13. Reverse of an Oasis
14. Thigh Food
15. The Immobile Ascetic
PART THREE – An Unburied Past
16. A Changed Man
17. The Severed Toe
18. The Path of Evil
19. A Mortal Sin
20. Another Mortal Sin
PART FOUR – The Beast Within
>
21. Aunty, How Are You?
22. Where the Chawl Ends
23. A Nervous State of Panic
24. Or Something
25. Fly in a Spider’s Web
26. Rotting Dead Body of an Animal
27. Fodder for Rodents
∞ Epilogue
FORTHCOMING
Sapna’s Bad Connection
Kalki’s Bundle of Joy
~ 0 ~
Prologue
Maya knew she was lying down, but something was not quite right about it. She couldn’t turn her head and see where she was. She tried to flail her arms around, but they didn’t obey her. She attempted to kick her limbs in the air, anything to get out of this position, but they wouldn’t move either. A horrible thought entered her half-conscious mind—was she dead?
Her attempt to open her eyes wide failed; all she could see was a blurred vision of the scene right in front of her. Her gaze was fixed straight up, skywards; and even then she could not see the sky. What she could see was a bright light—a luminescence so bright that it hurt her eyes and she shut them again.
She realized she had to free herself somehow. With this in mind, she made a feeble attempt to move her body, trying to press her back against the surface she lay on. Her body wiggled ever so slightly… and it was then she discovered she was naked. But, why was she naked? She didn’t have any memory of abandoning her clothes.
As she tried to push herself on the surface, hoping to find a fulcrum to increase her effort, she realized there was no surface. There was nothing holding her. She was floating on something abstract. Maybe she was indeed dead, and this was just her soul floating upwards, nothing more.
Then, she heard a voice—Are you still there, bitch?
The harsh words lashed at her like a whip. If she were really dead, she wasn’t going to heaven. That much was certain.
The menacing voice grew louder.
Wake up!
There will be no fun if you are passed out like that.
And there was another slap.
Even in her half-conscious state, she felt the full impact of the slap. It roused her out of her sluggishness. She was fully alert now. The slap had landed right across her cheek, and it stung like the stings of a dozen bees.
Her floating had been a nightmare. People are usually relieved when they wake up from nightmares and realize their agonies were merely bad dreams. But for Maya, the nightmare of being dead was nothing compared to the reality of being alive.
Memories of the past few hours came dancing into her mind—the groping in the dark, the eerie light behind the door, the gruesome discovery, and finally being captured by who was probably the most dangerous man she had ever known.
They came to her, those memories of being stripped and tied to the floor; and the imagination of the things he would probably do with her now made her pass out once again.
PART ONE
Opposites Attract
~ 1 ~
That Awful Stink
When Maya Bhargava was appointed the Head of the Biology Department at the Madam Somdevi Khanna High School for Boys, she felt she had reached a milestone towards the fulfillment of her goals. Having taught in the school for seven years, it was about time she received due recognition for her work. At 33 now, she wasn’t getting any younger.
That day, her first day as H.O.D., she and her friend, the English teacher Padma Murthy, sat in her new cabin and had a discussion on how times had flown. They spoke about their past days in the school, and generally cribbed about other teachers and a few of their students. Padma was on the right side of 40 still, but she hadn’t received the recognition her younger friend had. That was a sore point, but in her English Department, such accolades were rare.
They opened their respective lunchboxes and geared up for their small communal meal. Maya had a preparation of okra and eggplant, a dish Padma truly enjoyed, and Padma had vegetable biryani with paneer, a favorite with Maya.
“The students nowadays!” said Padma between mouthfuls of eggplant. “Atrocious! I happened to confiscate a few of the boys’ phones today. Regrettably, I skimmed through their contents.”
Maya chuckled. “What did you see on them, Padma?”
“Don’t ask!”
“Did you see some boobies?” Maya made an obscene gesture to go with her words.
“Good Lord, Maya!” said Padma, scandalized. “The things you say.”
“Come on, Padma, these are boys! At their age, they are all fighting their hormonal demons. What else did you expect to see? But tell me—didn’t you enjoy it at that age too?”
“Shut up, Maya!” Padma almost dropped her spoon.
“Yeah, don’t act like a saint,” said Maya. “Don’t tell me you were any different as a fifteen-year-old.”
“Certainly not!”
“You know, when I was fifteen, we had this amazing teacher. We used to call him Robinson Sir, and he used to teach History. Oh, what a dreamboat he was! That slickly combed hair and those washboard abs and the neatly ironed formal shirts and trousers he wore! We girls spent a lot of time cursing whoever the bitch his wife was. We had to just smell his deodorant and we would have an orgasm.”
“You are a teacher, for God’s sake, Maya!” said Padma.
“Stop being such a prude, Padma. Loosen up. We are all human under our teachers’ garbs.”
They were busy with their colorful banter when there was a knock at the door. Even before Maya could ask the person to come in, the door opened and a head butted in.
It was Bhaskar Sadachari, the Arts teacher of the school. Everyone knew he had been appointed on the recommendation of Principal Rajkumar Purohit himself, and perhaps the recommendation was justified. He did have some skill in those oddly long fingers of his, which he had shown with his work over the past couple of years. However, the esthetic appeal was limited to his artworks. It didn’t extend to his physical form. His hair was always in a state of disarray, his eyes often bloodshot, and a perpetually overgrown stubble tried in vain to hide the ungainly face that lay underneath. Wherever he went, he left behind aftershocks of comments—people buzzing about his near-complete abandon of any aspect of hygiene.
Through the corner of her eye, Maya saw Padma wrinkling her nose and closing her lunchbox.
“Madam,” the man addressed Maya, completely ignoring her friend, “I’d like to know if you need any help in setting up the models for the Science Exhibition.”
Maya thought. She did need help, for she had ambitious plans to make a few large models. This man, who was known for his artistic skill, could be a good assistant. But, accepting this offer would mean spending time with Mr. Weird Man, and that was something she did not want to do. “Thanks for the offer. I’ll let you know,” she said in a dismissive tone.
Bhaskar was probably too boorish to take that hint, or maybe just too obstinate. He hung at the door awhile, giving the ladies one of his twisted smiles. Padma avoided eye contact by trying to find something in the folds of her saree.
“Yes, you may go,” Maya told him curtly.
The sentence was succinct, but it conveyed what it meant in no mean terms. Being snubbed directly, Bhaskar retreated his head from the door and left.
No sooner did he leave than the ladies began gossiping. “What’s the matter with him?” said Maya. “He is so creepy.”
“Have you seen his neck?” said Padma, shoving the lunchbox aside. “Sorry, I won’t be able to eat now. His neck—it’s so red.”
“Is it? I haven’t really noticed.”
“Rajan Sir told me he saw him in the washroom once, washing his face with his shirt buttons open, and he saw his chest was red too. Initially, I thought it must be a rash, but what is it now—a year?”
“Two!” said Maya emphatically. “It’s two years now.”
Padma moved in closer, the way one does when telling something conspiratorially to a friend. “Also, did you notice? I don’t think he ever bathes. The moment he entered, the r
oom was filled with this awful stink.”
“Stink? Really?” Maya shook her head. “I didn’t get that. Probably it’s my blocked nose.” She let out a mucus-laden sniffle to validate her point.
“He is dreadful but what can we do about it?” asked Padma with her hands in the air. “The Principal is besotted with his work. He’s not going to send him away.”
“Yeah! The children like him too. I keep hearing of all the brilliant drawing he does. However, I find him creepy. It’s not because of his looks, it’s the way he acts. Almost like a stalker.” Maya let out a shudder. “I’ll prepare the models myself, but I am not going to take his help.” The resolution in her voice brought an end to the conversation.
***
Anuradha Bhargava was a contented middle-aged woman, proud of her traditional Maharashtrian roots. Her home was filled with symbols of her religious and communal affiliation, and she was proud of having raised two daughters to be such headstrong, self-believing women. Her older daughter, Maya, had just called to inform that she had been promoted to the Head of Department. She didn’t really understand what H.O.D. meant, but she didn’t want to lose the opportunity to bask in her prized daughter’s glory. Her other daughter, Namrata, worked as a Floor Manager at a suburban mall, which was a big achievement, particularly in the male-dominated environment of mall management. Yes, Anuradha Bhargava was certainly proud of her daughters.
