Men in Paradise - 15. Chapter 15 - The Ambush

 

Winter was at its peak within a few days. We received snowfalls almost every night. Not as heavy as we apprehended, they were snowfalls nonetheless. Some days we hardly had seen the sun. That extreme cold would have killed us, but we somehow survived. We had a house and science which protected us from that daily onslaught.

 

When the sun appeared, snow melted like magic in the morning. Nevertheless, they were forming like white sands everywhere except few parts of the islands. It was a miracle that Coconut and Palmyra trees survived on that island during winter.

 

Thanks to global warming, even a tropical island is transforming into icy regions and glaciers are melting. I must remind you that Justin had not established his conclusion that the island is tropical until then. That was something we were not able to find in the early days.

 

We were not too dependent upon coconuts and bananas anymore, as we found other food sources in the forest. In addition to that we got poultry, fishing and livestock. Thus we didn't really starve.

 

That day, Sakthi had gone to the beach for fishing. He came up with innovative ways to catch fish than the earlier one. His new fish trap consists of two cylindrical shapes made of bamboo sticks which are stringed together. One smaller and the other larger in size. He inserted the small cylinder into the larger one and closed its one edge. So that if fish once enters the cylinder, it will not be able to find its way out. By that way, he was able to catch larger fish by just leaving the fish trap between the rocks that were partially immersed in sea water. He picks up the trap in the mornings and collects the fish trapped in it. It was time consuming and effortless.

 

I saw Justin and Afridi burning woods around the farm as our regular task to keep the crops warm. They were both shirtless showing off their bare chests like sex icons. Playing and pulling each other low hips trousers.

 

I was a little surprised to see them stick with each other most of the time. Initially, they weren't that close. Infact last night at the loft when we were asleep, I noticed them jerking off each other with their trousers down to their knees. It was too dark for me to gather a detailed description of it, but I knew what was happening with their hands, body movements and moans. Sakthi was sleeping next to me, he had no clue whatsoever.

 

I wonder how long they have been doing things like that. That morning when I saw their faces there was not an ounce of regret or weirdness between them. Probably, out of sexual frustration, they just found a solution to help each other just like our other survival ways, that was what I thought.

 

But for me, I had no relief for my sexual desire until then. I rarely masturbate, unlike I do it back home almost every day. I had no courage to overcome my fear and shy to reach out to others in that gang. Definitely, not Sakthi, who was my unrequited crush or love or whatever. That man was like a damn straight stone with no weakness or emotions whatsoever.

 

Whenever I felt an urge for sex or some sort of release, i went to the water stream or beach for a bath. Waters soothed my mind and body. I watched my dick go flaccid with some sort of gratification. My pubic hair was growing thicker than before, hence I was forced to trim it off with whatever tools available at that time. I chopped a wood and sculpted a Linga (a symbol of Lord Shiva) out of it. I kept it inside a rock for my daily prayers and meditation. Whenever my mind was troubled and I needed relief, I went to the rocks to pray. I did everything I could to keep things under control.

 

I didn't want to delve much into Justin and Afridi's mutual jerk off sessions. It would have either got me upset or horny. So I did the only thing I could, I found an activity to do to keep me engaged.

 

Back home, in my state Kerala, they call it as God's own country, since it was filled with natural resources along with abundant coconuts, palmyra trees and bananas. They played an important role in our lives on all occasions and activities. We used coconut trees to extract cooking oils, coir as mattresses, threads and tender coconuts as energy drinks. Palmyra saps were used to make alcoholic beverages, mats and Palmyra jaggery as brown sugar.

 

So I climbed as many trees as possible and collected coconuts back to the hut. And then I climbed Palmyra and Coconut trees to collect its sap, it required the whole day to fill the cans I stringed to the trees. By evening, I went to the water stream and brought back clay.

 

By the time Sakthi returned back from the shore with a big fish. I asked him to help me make a big pan like a pottery vessel and wooden fry spoon. I was planning to make two types of sugar using coconut and Palmyra saps. Since, I wasn't sure which one would be better as an alternate for sugarcane.

 

We fried the fish and ate it along with the vegetables.

 

I was looking at the sea from a distance. Afridi was playing with MJ, the lamb. Sakthi was cleaning the vessels. That's when I noticed a bunch of black flies were flying towards us from the entrance of the forest. I adjusted my eyesight and looked at them clearly. They were not just a bunch but hundreds of them. I saw Justin running at top speed towards us and screaming. At first, I didn't hear him clearly.

 

But when he approached us closer, I heard him say "Go, run back to the house".

 

He was waving his hands like crazy. He almost reached the shelter by then. He just grabbed Afridi and started running towards the house.

 

My instinct warned me of the danger beforehand. I glanced at Sakthi for a second and then we both splintered back to the house in a hurry. Not knowing what was happening, goats followed us too.

 

"Close the front door" Justin screamed at me and I obliged him.

 

Soon after, I heard noises around the house hitting the wooden walls and on the roof. There were few flies entering the house through the gaps. Each one of us took a mat or whatever object we found and started hitting the flies as many as we could. Fortunately, only a few of them managed to enter the house, but the rest just flew away.

 

We got bitten a little bit. But Afridi was the most affected person since he was carrying the lamb and the flies targeted him mainly due to that. It took several minutes to grasp what just happened then. The unexpected attack made us speechless.

 

"What was that?" Sakth was the first one who broke the silence.

 

"Flies" Justin replied while examining Afridi's hands for bite marks.

 

"Let's apply some coconut oil on the bites. Is it still painful?" He asked Afridi with care.

 

"A little bit," Afridi told him. He was really shocked by that incident, it was clearly visible on his face.

 

I brought coconut oil from the storage and gave it to Justin. He applied them on Afridi's hands, legs and neck.

 

Sakthi picked a dead fly and showed it to us. Justin carefully looked at it.

 

"Thanks to your alert, we ran back to the house. Otherwise, we would have been surrounded and attacked by hundreds of them. Will they come back again?" Sakthi asked Justin.

 

"I don't know. They might be migrating during winter or they might come back. We should be alert at all times" Justin warned us.

 

It took several hours for normalcy to return among us. We opened the front door and checked the poultry cage. Luckily, birds were unharmed. Neither our new garden or crops were attacked by the flies.

 

"I have a feeling they were just migrating and we stood on their way" Justin said which somewhat relaxed us.

 

I took an inventory of all the coconuts I collected in the morning and stored it inside the hut. I needed them to extract oil and later use its coir for thread and mattress. Thanks to the trolley we found on the shore the other day. It helped me to carry all the loads. Afridi rearranged the trolley's mechanism little bit by just keeping the bottom part of it and removing its upper shelf, he attached a big wooden plate over it which provided enough space to keep the loads and drag it wherever we want.

 

Back home, I never did any household chores. Sometimes I even left my food plates in my bedroom hoping my mom or sister would pick it. When two of my other brothers shared the house chores, I spent most of my time playing video games, I was addicted to it. It made my dad upset, he had to ban me playing them at home. I got other ways to keep me entertained such as TikTok. I used to post my videos almost everyday showcasing my masochism. Girls kept sexting me, oblivious of my sexual preferences. But that too was later banned by our Indian government. I was in fact looking forward to visiting my sister's place for the holidays in the US, so that I can start using TikTok. I was so bored of my life back home during holidays.

 

But everything changed on that island. I was glad to keep me busy at work. It gave me a meaning and passed my time, even though I missed my mom's cooking and the comfort of my smartphone.

 

I wiped the snow out of the front porch of our hut. It was slippery. I lit the fire and heated the palmyra sap in the vessel. I had enough sap. I wasn't planning to convert all of them into jaggery. I have seen villagers at my grandparents place who used to climb the trees and string a pot to collect the sap, it will be hanging on the tree all day. They brew the sap and store it under the earth for fermentation. We call it 'Panam Kallu', it's a type of alcoholic beverage made in Kerala. So I planned to brew some Panam Kallu. Once done, all I had to do was to find a way to ferment them and store under the ground.

 

When we made the pan vessel, I made a small pot for Panankallu too. Jaggery was getting ready. I poured them on a plate to dry it.

 

"Where did you learn all these things?" Sakthi asked me.

 

"Back home in Kerala, my grandparents owned a big farm in the village, it's just 50 miles away from Calicut, where I lived with my parents"

 

"So he taught you all these coconut stuff?" He asked me in disbelief.

 

"Yep, coir products and coconuts were grandpa's main business, my father back home in Calicut takes care of its marketing and distribution" I told him

 

Now that I think of it, it made me proud of my background and where I came from.

 

"Nice," Sakthi said with that husky tone of his.

 

I felt that was the right time to ask him questions. I wanted to know more about him and his background.

 

"When are you going to tell me about your family back home? About your wife? Do you have kids?" I asked my questions one after another.

 

Indian men are supposed to be married by the age of twenty five. Our social norms force us to marry a girl and breed as many children as we could. Indian male will be accepted as a man transformed from his boyhood only if he is married and reproduced. Back home, we remove a coconut tree if it becomes barren. Our life was somewhat similar to that. Marrying a girl outside of our caste, religion or region is strictly condemned. Our parents and relatives will find a suitable girl for us and we had to marry that girl. We would be ostracized if we attempt otherwise. This is one of the reason a gay boy like me finds it hard to live the way we want. Most gay men in India remain in their closet even though same sex and partnership is legal. But things are different for transgender in our country. Our Hindu mythology celebrates trans-sexuality to a greater extent. Our principal God Lord Vishnu took a female avatar to marry Lord Shiva. There are Gods who are both female and male at the same time. Thus traditionally transgender are celebrated as close to Gods. They were invited to our religious festivals, our governments have special provisions for their welfare. Straight Indian men are either scared of them or attracted to them. Straight men marrying a transgender is very common in the country. There are allegations in recent times that many gay men decides to transform as Transgender since their life could be better than being gay in India.

 

Sakthi adjusted his throat and the sound brought me back from my thoughts. He was staring at the fire burning more fiercely. I couldn't understand his hesitance to talk about his background. I wonder what could be worse than our deserted island situation. But I realised he was not comfortable talking about it.

 

"I am sorry I shouldn't have asked, you don't have to tell me about it if you didn't want to" I told him.

 

He stared at me, looking directly on my eyes . I saw a different expression on his face that I couldn't comprehend.

 

"It's not like I didn't want to tell you. I am not sure if I want to remember it, you know" he told me, he wasn't his usual self.

 

"Is it that bad?" I asked him again

 

"I am recently divorced, just signed my papers before I left Chennai" he just blurted it out. And then he started staring at the fire once again.

 

Divorce is rare in India. Even though it is legal, our society does not accept it as a right of an individual to make personal choices in his life. Family and relatives consider divorce as against the will of the god. Courts are mostly reluctant on it unless the case has domestic violence against the woman in that marriage.

 

I knew Sakthi was keeping something to himself, that was eating him out. So I kept silent to let him pour it out.

 

"We were colleagues and I met her at my workplace. We liked each other and had a relationship for a few months. And then I got married to her last year. Things went well for sometime, but then we started fighting all the time. She comes from a rich family, her father owned multi chain restaurants in Chennai. She was a bit head strong and expected to pay a lot of attention to her. She wanted me to quit my job and help her father's business. I didn't like that" He paused for a moment, took a deep breath and continued his story.

 

"And then she found out she couldn't become pregnant with me. She wanted a child, she loved them. We both went for testing and the doctor found out that I can't make babies. We tried a test tube way, but it didn't work. Her father spent a lot of money for my treatment. I refused to take his money. She started fighting with me. And then our fight increased day by day. It was unbearable, I couldn't take it. One day, I got so mad and I ran away to my sister's place in the UK, I didn't inform my wife. She had gone mad and crazy. When I returned back to Chennai, she wasn't there at home. Few days later, her father sent me the papers" he finished his story. He was still staring at the fire then.

 

He lifted his head and said "I am barren, a complete waste, you know. What's the point of doing these workouts and muscles, I still couldn't do it. God cursed me that way" His voice shattered.

 

People don't have to workout and build muscles to make babies, but i didn't want to shout that out at that time and insult him any further.

 

"Please don't say that. Reproducing babies isn't the only thing in the world," I consoled him as best as I could.

 

He looked at me for a moment and then went back to the house.

 

I sat there feeling like stupid for asking him about his life.