I believe that each one of us has a hidden a criminal inside. A part of us that is excited to try what is forbidden, what is abnormal,and what is denied. Those that are not acceptable or allowed, and something very, very dark. It has a personal and private existence within us, something we recognize and yet, we control, suppress, and tame. It urges us though, and seduces us, unrelenting and uncontrolled, tempting our belligerent desires to go wild and savour what is repressed, what is feared. To do what it obliges us to do: to express ourselves in the open, to forget our inherent values as human beings, and become, as they say, like animals, as we swallow at the same time our shame…We wear masks trying the least to conquer its unbidden will.
We hide it behind our faces and pretend it is non-existent like venereal disease. After all, we can always be hypocrites. We can wallow in the good reputation of our respectable names and public images as long as it is necessary; those lovable and wholesome portraits we present to our families, to our friends, to our professional and social circles, co-mingling in the dirty arena of our pretentious lives.
Still, we nurture our crimes. No one will know. No one notices. No one suspects that we are all rotten inside. We flaunt and hide instead in the fabulous facade of glamour and designer-tailored suits. We remain still, quiet, determined; a predator salivating at the mere sight of its easy prey, while the clicks of cameras and the hum of videos in the glare of lights highlighted our rehearsed parade against the blood-soaked carpet laid out at our precious steps.
We glide. We float with effortless ease. The demonic dark straining a glimpse behind our brains danced with convulsive rapture: We have them all fooled, boss! No one dares question someone as respectable and venerable as the names and the titles each of us carry–president, chairman, senator, mayor, councilor, admiral, chief, reverend, highness, dean, doctor, professor, CEO, COO, founder, owner, hero, et al–with doctorates and masteral degrees, accolades and honorific grants incomparable to not even one of our puny, submissive preys…the gullible public in general, and our loving families, in particular.
We closed the doors, tired. We kicked off our shoes. Let the butler or the chambermaid or whoever was assigned to wait up to pick after us and take care of our smelly trash. We undress, we brush our teeth. We do our toilet. We prepare to go to bed, naked. Then, we hear a familiar whimper in the bedsheets. Our eldest, youngest, or whatever age we prefer, sleeping again in the warm softness she or he finds comforting in our pillows, whenever we are out.
The wife is still not home; partying, celebrating, having a wondrous time with friends, just like us a while ago; intoxicated in the attention begotten to us by our admirers, the hangers-on, and the never-ending groupies that never waned. We lift the little girl. She’s ten, going on fifteen. Our eyes never leaving the small swells of her budding breasts; the curve of the lump that is so soft and tiny between her legs…bare, unshaven, uncovered. With nary a strand of pubic hair. Delicious, ripe, succulent and juicy and moist to our lips–And we slammed our heads with a closed fist. God-damn-it!!!
Our hands trembled. Both legs, quivered, shook. We put our daughters/ sons to their beds. Our hardness getting in the way. Persistent, obvious, obscene. Pointing hard at the meat, at the meal it wants to partake before we roll ourselves in sleep…We closed our eyes. We locked the door. We shut out the lights. “Daddy? Is that you–ha-haha!! Daddy, it tickles me!!”
We woke up. The wife fast asleep in her room. She also had her little crimes. To ask her, to confront her about it would be foolish, suicidal, stupid. The arguments won’t stop. It never stops. The truth never revealed. Might as well forget it all. Anyway, we also had our fill. We drank the liquid from the forbidden cup, remember? And still, no one figured it yet. No one knows about it; the innocent victim remained as innocent as ever in the selfish, possessive eyes of others.
We dress. We go out to do our jobs, to fulfill the repetitive rituals of our daily lives. Yet we are hopeful. Always on the verge of malicious ecstasy. Will she be waiting again in our room? Will there be a second round? Will she let my mouth a chance to go around? Will she keep her lips sealed or allow me in this time? Will she keep our secret and for how long? The temptation, tickling the rim of our manhood, never left our trembling desires. Our flesh, inflamed by the corruption of our thoughts, savouring every moment of the illicit encounter again and again–in the elevator, at our desk, in the meeting, in the canteen–every woman we meet in the corridors resembles our victim, a child-woman, a woman-child we cherish and prefer.
We have our fangs bared. We are ready for the kill. Yet, we are always selective. We have acquired the perverse taste, the forbidden flavour prevalent in our lurid dreams. We now relish only that which are ours; that which our own families can give, and no one else. We hasten to vomit the cheap. Unavoidable as it may seem, we puke out the rest. We feel it an insult to ourselves if we indulged somewhere else. Better yet, if we go home. Catch a moment of carelessness, of wanton freedom; of an unguarded, secluded spot with which to render our dreams for real. Catch the fire while it’s red hot. And hope the wife is again, out.
Our dispositions by now are muddled. We cannot think straight in this regard. We have no more high regard for what society dictates, what morality commands. We are the kings of our domains. This is our manor, and we will do as we please! Anyway, the little darling is so willing, so wet. She hasn’t told anyone yet. Take advantage of her intoxication. Let her awakened sexuality burn her rationality. Let her go blind to the dirty truth of what we do together in bed…
And then, our appetites grew. We want more of every body in the family. The niece who stays on weekends, cuddling a broken heart. What hunger she might have contained by now! Longing for the embrace, the kiss, and whatever else transpired before the meltdown. We can supply all that…Indeed, we are experts in mouth-to-mouth. We are always available for that kind of job…No, for the task. She’s twenty one and heavy; big and built and busty. It will be Mt. Everest and Kilimanjaro. And the forest is thick. We need a woodcutter to trim the trees before we can find our way through…To blaze our path to the center of the heath, and lit our fires with gusto.
We succumbed. We commit more crimes. More lewd, more perverse, more deviant. We lie. We lay. We hide. We pretend that there is nothing wrong in what we do; that our lives remained normal, healthy, and alive, even if, our part of the bed grew sticky, stale, and shallow. And we got caught…Our little darling can’t help herself, can’t control her aroused libido. She grabs us under the tablecloth. Unabashed, undeterred in the breakfast nook. She stroked and played with the king, until it stood erect, majestic, and red. We crumpled under the pleasure; melted in the perversion of the touch, and shuddered several times in explosive surprise, as the maid looked on, aghast.
And the maid screamed and shouted and screamed again. Until the wife woke up to find us beneath the stairs. With the little darling embracing us, still attached below our waist, a jellyfish sucking air in the low, warm tide of summer…
The red and blue lights winked and bounced its annoying reflections in the living room. The officers were already bribed. The maid paid doubled and released, with her signatures affixed in a sworn testimonial. The scandal was controlled, contained, blotted out without a sound. Only trhe wife crying loud, as if there is death in the house. Oh, what hypocrisy! What outward show of concern, while our darling watched Hanna on TV!
The doors closed. The car moved on, quiet and without the glare of the flashing lights. Everything again seemed normal; our breath, our pulse, our respectable status in life. Yet the house felt empty, cold, vacant, dark…As dark as the churning guilt we all feel each time we committed a crime; completed and finished as we dwell on it–Can we now begin again, please? Can we go on with our previous, sane lives?
Yet there is no life to begin with. We are criminals now, exposed, branded, and tag. And we will carry the reputation till the last days of our tarnished lives. We shiver in disgust. We tremble as we contemplate our miserable future. The bottle beckons but does not provide an answer. Nor the cold, double-barrels of steel we tested in our mouths. No, not the pills either. Nor the consoling moans of our darlings who pity us, calling us, approving on our small misdemeanor, in spite of the total ruin we inflicted in their too young lives. We are criminals, and we will go on forever being criminals. The stigma is permanent, indelible. The truth had been exposed. The pain of our darlings are unforgettable, yet they remained unaware of the brutal consequences until they approached the right age, when they begin to realize at last the horror of what we did.
Then comes the overwhelming hatred. The all-consuming wave of anger. We can no longer wear our smiling masks to hide our tired, weary faces; to meet our families, our friends, our neighbours, our associates and eke out a laugh. We lost our identity. It hid itself now from us. We committed a crime. Even our deaths will not make things right. We are already dead. Yet there is no time to bury us; no one to dig our graves. We stink. We fade, we blend easily among the dirt. Still, our illness persist; our perversion remained alive on top of the garbage.
How many of us are in existence? How many homes and families have we ruined, hurt? How many of our children have we destroyed; their childhood, their youth, their lives consumed, obliterated? How many of us have already admitted to our crimes? How many have atoned for the guilt? And how many are truly out there now, sick–without hope, without cure, without a chance to reform or change?
We are criminals, you and I. And the rest of us are still counting, savouring, riding every abominable moment of our despicable crimes. Entertaining again and again all the humiliating possibilities, and hoping it will last this time, while we rot…Either behind bars, in an asylum, a hospital ward, or if we are lucky, in a luxurious chateau or villa in our dirty, fevered minds, somewhere in hell.
Prevalent cases of child molestations and incest are known to exist in some parts of the world, and maybe due to cultural predilections, living conditions, and social proclivities. So that which are malicious criminal acts in some countries become a growing child’s normal part of existence; where polygamy, sodomy, and bisexuality are but only normal, ordinary sexual conducts.
