"Ah! Ahh!! Ahhhh!!!” Tina screamed as she tightly grasped the bedsheet with both hands. Her voice echoed in the woods through the window.
The orgasm was intense. The sweet feeling was beyond what words could describe. That was the first time she experienced orgasm after five years. She had not experienced such a feeling ever since she got married to Paul. Her inability to reach orgasm during sex worried her but never a time did she discuss it with Paul. Sometimes, she fondled herself but that was not enough to get her to the peak of sexual satisfaction.
Tina woke up to realise she was alone in the compartment. A dream? She couldn’t believe it; it was too vivid. The face of the man was still clear in her mind's eye; it wasn’t Paul.
It was early morning. The sun had not yet arose. Birds were singing in the woods, frogs were croaking, and the bubbling sound of the stream behind the cabin could be heard. It was such a pleasant hour in the woods at the countryside but, Tina did not pay heed to it—the dream occupied her mind.
She sat up on the bed and to her surprise, she saw a small part of the bedsheet wet with vaginal fluids and semen. Semen? That was weird. She slept alone. She locked the door before she slept. She remembered when Muka left her in her compartment to hers in the cabin—yes, she was sure she locked the door.
What then might have happened? She was the type of woman who always slept naked. So, could it be that while she was deeply asleep, someone entered her compartment and slept with her? Series of questions and answers flashed her mind but none took her out of the mystery that seemed to have engulfed her.
“Let me check the door,” she said to herself, and got out of bed.
She didn’t bother to put on a dress, and when she took her first step to the door, she saw her naked self in a big mirror that leaned on the wall beside the door. She became stunned. She looked so beautiful, more beautiful than she had ever known herself. She looked younger. Her face and breasts looked like when she was a teenager; her small navel was dotted on her flat belly; and between her thighs was her charming, clean-shaved front bottom. A kind of self admiration inundated her, and that made her to admire herself momentarily before she proceeded to the door.
Cautiously, she held the door knob, and when she turned it and tried to open the door, she breathed satisfactorily; the door was securely locked.
“It was a dream. A dream? A dream made me experience orgasm? Something that Paul and myself never succeeded in making me experience?” she grumbled as she shuffled back to the bed.
She stood still for a moment and looked around the room, and accidentally, an old book on a small table beside the bed caught her attention. There was a glorious rose flower painting on the front cover of the book. She became curious, and picked it. She gazed at the painting of the rose flower admiringly for awhile and turned it to look at what was on the back cover, and there, she saw the painting of a cock and a cat eating honey in a bowl.
“Amazing!” she exclaimed, and without waiting a minute to contemplate the paintings on the cover of the book, she started flipping the pages.
The pages were blank but her curious mind didn’t allow her to stop; she continued flipping until she got to the middle where she saw a big, beautiful painting of a butterfly.
“What a beautiful painting!” she exclaimed again. It was like the book contained everything that triggered sweet emotions in her.
But for a moment, the unique feeling got replaced by a kind of eerie feeling. She stood in stunned silence as she stared at the painting. She could remember seeing the same painting somewhere but as much as she tried, she could not remember where she saw it. She looked at the painting more carefully and, finally, she realised the painting was much deeper in meaning than it appeared. It wasn’t a butterfly. It was a painting of a vulva with a stimulated clitoris masterfully crafted and hidden in a shadow of a butterfly.
And for the third time, she could not resist the tendency to exclaim: “What a masterful piece of art!”
“Tina!” a voice, accompanied by a knock almost coincided with hers and got her distracted. “It’s me, Muka. Breakfast is ready. Come to the hall," the voice sounded again before she could ask who the person behind the door was.
“I will be there soon. Thank you."
Reluctantly, she returned the book to its resting place and rushed to the washroom to freshen up.
There were about twelve women in the hall when Tina got there. Eight of them were young, younger than herself but they were married, just like her; they wore their wedding rings. They looked cheerful. Almost everyone welcomed her with a smile. Apart from Muka, she knew none of them except two; Mercy Woods and Linda Rocks—they were feminists and women’s right activists who hosted popular television talk shows. They were also very active in every women’s group on social media. Mercy was single, so was Linda. They were matured women who were known for giving relationship and marriage counseling. Like coaches, Mercy and Linda never played the games themselves but, it appeared they held the tactics of the game tight in their grips. Lots of women in the country and beyond knew Mercy and Linda. Their counseling always produced good results, many claimed.
The women stood up to receive and respond to Tina’s greeting, and that quite surprised her. She was a princess but she didn’t live like one. Virtually no one in her neighbourhood knew she was a royal. So, why that gesture? She couldn’t guess.
“There, your seat,” Muka directed Tina to a seat which was beside Linda and directly opposite Muka.
“Thank you,” she said appreciatively, calling to mind her royal etiquette rules.
Walking slowly, Tina's eyes moved quickly from one end of the hall to the other. At the right corner of the hall stood a beautiful flower pot in which was a rose plant with bright flowers. Light from a big lantern at the center of the wooden ceiling illuminated the hall. There was a big table around which the women sat. Two seats were unoccupied; one was at the left end of the table, opposite Muka where she was directed to, and one was towards a door on which hang a red curtain.
The women continued to stand till she took her seat. And then, a deafening silence followed. No one spoke, not even Muka. There were no cups, no plates, nothing on the table that indicated they were going to have breakfast. The eerie feeling began to engulf her again, but she wouldn’t keep quiet. She wouldn’t keep quiet over the mysterious feeling that was pinching her.
“What’s happening here, Muka?” She broke the silence, and her voice reverberated on the roof of the cabin.
She sat upright with her eyes and ears widely opened, ready for an answer but, neither Muka nor any of the women answered her.
The silence deepened and paved way for the songs of birds and the sound of the bubbling stream to rule.
Confused and terrified, Tina’s heart started to race. Her instincts clearly communicated to her that there was something mysterious about the place. And that made her to think much more seriously. A big, old cabin deep in the woods and far away from human settlements serves what purpose? She was not on vacation. She was not on any kind of adventure. She only discussed her inability to reach orgasm and how it was weighing her down with Muka, and that's what had led her to this mysterious place. Muka suggested to her to go on a trip with her to the countryside, a place where women with similar problems converged and talked their hearts out about their problems. She trusted Muka. She knew her since infancy. Everyone in the neighbourhood liked her. No one ever said anything bad about her. She was a happy-go-lucky woman who enjoyed her life to the full.
Muka was a beautiful, fifty years old woman who never considered getting married again after her husband died in a UN peace keeping operation in the Lebanese civil war. She was a teacher before her husband lost his life in the peace keeping operation. After the death of her husband, she devoted herself to helping women who had lost their husbands. She was childless and that perhaps helped in her new role in society.
Tina stared at Muka. And Muka looked back at her. The posture of Muka communicated some assurance to her. It was as if she was trying to say, 'you are safe so don’t worry.’ But that was not enough for Tina. She continued to stare at Muka until the tattoo on the spot above the right breast of Muka reminded her of the vulva painting in the book in her compartment. She had seen the tattoo on her before but never a time had she given it any serious attention.
“That’s it,” she said silently, and put her memories to work, keenly comparing the tattoo and the painting she saw in the book. They were the same except for the fact that, one was brightly coloured and one was not.
“This is not a mere coincidence,” she reasoned, and shifted her attention from Muka to the rest of the women. Mercy, Linda, and one other woman had the same tattoo above their right bust. The rest of the women, the young ones were not having it. Her confusion and curiosity then turned into fear.
She sat silent and thought about what next was going to happen, but before she could churn out a guess, the door on which the red curtain hang shrieked open, and a sudden storm began to rage. The windows of the hall got shut by the wind, the light in the hall went off, and murky darkness filled the hall.
