PREDATOR

It was 7 pm. End of a hard day’s work at the office. As Rohan got up from his seat, he could see his other colleagues busily wrapping up their papers for the day. Some people were strolling in the hall all set to go. 10 minutes later, as the lights were getting turned off, Rohan along with some of his colleagues left the hall to move to the parking lot. As he revved up his bike, Rohan waved heartily to his colleagues and in a flurry, rode off quickly.

“It seems that Rohan is in a hurry to get home,” commented Mohan, a good colleague of Rohan – “He probably wants to go home and meet his wife.”

“Yes,” commented Rohan, another colleague – “They are such a loving couple.”

30 minutes later, a lone bike strolled in silently into the darkness. Rohan had returned. He had a lewd expression on his face and sported a look of anticipation. He silently came up to the office and without switching on the lights sat down expectantly at his computer.

“Time to have fun,” he thought…

Rohan hastily opened yahoo messenger and started logging in. He logged in using a female id - Aarti and immediately went to the ‘singles’ room. As he scouted around, a window popped open. A male id ‘Jonathan’ identified himself as 24/m/California and asked for identification. Aarti identified herself as 22/f/india and started talking to this unsuspecting stranger.

“Hey, Aarti, how are you?”
“Not too bad, Jonathan - how about you?”

“I am good. What do you do for a living?”
“Oh! Nothing much – I am a struggling model.”

“Ah, a model!”

Rohan could visualize Jonathan drooling. His eyes were alert as he smiled lewdly and thought,” HeHe – this is gonna be easy prey.”

“Aarti, what products do you model for?”
“Oh! For bathing soap.”

“Ah! That must be very interesting. Does that require you to…ahem…you know…kind of…be undressed?”

Rohan was high. As he read the chat, he was extremely excited.

“He’s falling for it,” he thought…

“Well, yes it requires me to be topless, you know – and I really hate that part. All the crew on the set stare at me as if…and you know what happened last time…the producer made a pass at me. I was so scared…”

“Why were you scared?”
“Well, I thought he would, you know, do bad things with me.”

“What bad things?”
“Well, you know, like …”

Rohan was on cloud nine. He was having major fun. He knew that Jonathan wanted to talk dirty with Aarti and this whole thing was giving him a major kick.

“Aarti, why do you think this is bad?”
“I don’t know – it kind of sounds so wrong.”

Suddenly, Rohan’s eyes fell on his watch.

“Oops, its 9:30 pm, Ranjana must be waiting for dinner,” thought Rohan as he hastily logged out and turned the computer off.

The next day at office, Rohan was his cool self. No one knew of his hidden world where he had so much ‘fun.’ As he went about doing his work efficiently, he was humming…

Once, while Rohan was in a chat room with Aarti’s id, he suddenly saw an id enter the room. The name seemed familiar. As Rohan inspected the name carefully and clicked on his profile to know more about him, he suddenly realized who the person was. He was none other than his colleague Mahesh who sat in the same hall with him.

Rohan was excited. He realized that he could have major fun with Mahesh without him finding out about his real identity. He immediately contacted Mahesh online under Aarti’s id with a flamboyant greeting saying that he wanted to be friends with him.

Initially, Rohan got no response, but he persisted. Finally Mahesh gave in and returned the greeting. Rohan immediately began his act of being a struggling female model and how his producer was trying to exploit him and was always trying to flirt with him.

He kept on his tirade for fifteen minutes till finally Mahesh consented to be ‘friends.’
Mahesh responded sympathetically and told him not to worry as now he was Aarti’s friend and would take care of her. He would personally visit the producer and talk to him.

Rohan was smiling lewdly knowing that Mahesh had taken the bait and fallen hook, line and sinker for this story. He knew that now he had Mahesh in his hand and could have major fun with him.

Rohan then started asking Mahesh if he had a girlfriend to which Mahesh responded negative. He then asked him whether he never felt the need to have one to which Mahesh responded that he had a strong need for a companion with whom he could share everything.

Rohan then asked him what kind of a girl he was looking for to which Mahesh responded that he was looking for a beautiful, truthful and sensitive person with whom he could spend time and share everything. Rohan was on cloud nine. He immediately beckoned Rohit who was his good friend to his computer and whispered the whole setup to him. He then winked at Rohit saying that they would take Mahesh for a nice ride to which Rohit smiled back wickedly and agreed that this was great fun.

This went on for a few days. Mostly Rohan and Rohit would have a good laugh at the end of the many sessions that had taken place.

Then something happened in office which changed things. Rohan’s boss assigned Mahesh to work with Rohan on a certain assignment. Rohan was taken aback initially but then realized that he could find out more about Mahesh’s real life through the association with him in office and could then use that information to have more fun with him.

As Rohan and Mahesh were sitting together on one occasion discussing work, Rohan casually asked Mahesh whether he ever had a girlfriend to which Mahesh replied that he had one sometime in the past. Rohan probed further and discovered that she had ditched him for someone else leaving Mahesh scarred. As a result of this, Mahesh now hated women and was very careful in dealing with them.

Rohan felt sorry for Mahesh and even felt a tinge of guilt about playing with him in the internet chat room. He resolved to use the chat room to now build back Mahesh’s trust in women through Aarti and then finally disappear after healing his wounds to some extent.

When Aarti greeted Mahesh in the chat room the next time, he noticed that she was very subdued. As Mahesh commented on this, Aarti responded by saying that she really liked Mahesh and was gradually falling in love with him. Mahesh must have immediately stiffened as his woman-hating instincts took over and he told Aarti politely that he was not interested at that point in time.

Aarti responded by saying that it was all right and that she would wait for Mahesh to give his consent. She spoke nice love words and made Mahesh feel that he was very important to her and that she would never ever hurt him. She spoke about the time when she herself was very hurt because her boyfriend ditched her and now she was looking for someone to heal her wounds.

As this continued session after session, Rohan realized that Mahesh was beginning to like Aarti. He now realized that this itself was a healing process and this itself indicated that Mahesh’s wounds were now closing and that he was now beginning to trust women again.

Rohan realized that now he had to back off in some way and bring this to a closure. He realized that the best way of doing that was to confess to Mahesh that he was actually Aarti and seek his forgiveness. Through interacting with Mahesh, he had realized that Mahesh was a very sensitive and nice person and would surely overlook this issue if confessed to properly.

Rohan had mixed feelings as he approached Mahesh. As he sat down next to Mahesh, Rohan patted him on the back and told him that he wanted to tell him something. As he was midway in the confession with downcast eyes, he suddenly looked up and saw Mahesh giving him a very keen look.

Before he could finish, Mahesh slowly rubbed Rohan’s cheeks and told Rohan not to worry. He took Rohan’s hand and told him that it was ok and that he would not tell anyone and that Rohan had succeeded in his quest of making him fall in love.

Except that since he knew it all along, it was not Aarti but Rohan whom he was in love with. Mahesh caressed Rohan’s palm and told Rohan that they would have a great life together saying that his hatred of women had made him a homosexual.

Rohan’s world shook with a thunder that he had never experienced before. He looked up with shock and stared at the ceiling.

The ceiling stared back at him.

by Vikas and Me