The streets of India is overwhelming in every possible way, constantly alternating between areas of extreme pedestrian traffic and areas of extreme motor traffic. I have seen more people, heard more sounds, enjoyed more fragrances and suffered more odors than I have in all my life.

The heat out here slowly fries me to ash, it is like the sun is an oppressive entity trying to assert its dominance. I wish I had thought about the weather before I decided to wear this sweater, the only thing that had been going through my mind at the time was " hiding " my plight behind the white sweater's long sleeves.

In the distance, amidst the sounds of cars honking and people shouting curses at each other, I hear a bell ring thirteen times. If the bell is saying what I think it's saying, the time is one o'clock; If that is true, then it has been six hours since I made my decision and yet, there have been no results.

Before I came to my conclusion, other options were considered.

1) Renting out the house: I dismissed this almost instantaneously as it would take too much time, I also dont even know how the whole process works. Besides, how do I go about finding customers?

2) Working a job that doesn't need hands: This was dismissed as well as it would take forever to make something decent. Who would even want to employ me? I mean, without my hands, what can I do?

Hence, my third option. I have heard sex workers make a lot of money and at this point, I really do not care about anything else.

* * *

The oppressive sun has made me like a walking corpse, maybe I should have attached a sign to my chest reading "no money, no hand, would fuck for fair price". Honestly,
where are the pimps when you need them? Why has everything gotta be so hard?

I can't help but miss John; Everything was always simple when all I had to do was type; I could have made this entire journey without even moving my legs, I won't even need this journey if I had a computer with me. I used to hate it then, but If it means getting my old life back, I would be happy to eat all the porridge in the world.

I take a bend and come across what must be a hotel. It displays three women in suggestive poses on a large poster, I hope to become the fourth.

* * *

Fuck it all, I just might go with the house renting thing. The hotel was a total bust, and everywhere after was a total bust as well. It is almost like I just came up here to embarrass myself and waste my time. Those who didn't want to take nude pictures for an online catalogue(which I would never agree to as I'll rather not be ogled at in my absence) wanted to "test run" me( I am not a bus). The hotel said I should come back when I'm "complete", the next two said they need proof that I'm vaccinated against COVID(which I've not really heard of ) and a few said I have to make a down payment.

Needless to say, my life as a slut ended before it even began.

* * *

The journey back home is depressing, I hear the bell again. It is five PM and I'm going home empty-handed. The scenery feels different, there are even more people out and about. I honestly believe I'm lost. The only good thing is, that the sun has decided to stop the torture.

A young boy approaches me with clothes on one arm, telling me something in his language that I don't understand.

I am about to tell him to speak English when three older women join him, shoving even more clothing items in my face. They are all saying different things but I hear the word "rupees" being repeated a lot of times. They are all trying to sell clothing items to me all at once.

A small crowd soon forms around me and then a larger crowd, each having something different to show me, from polish, bread and oranges to human bones and teeth. I don't know why they think I have money.

A man selling meat in an old stall catches me looking at him and starts cutting his meat with a wicked-looking knife. He says something which I don't need to know the language to understand "If you don't buy, I'll be slicing you up next; it's only a few rupees, my friend"

I catch the eye of a boy, watching me watch him as he steals an older man's phone from his pocket. His eyes are wide, pleading and utterly terrified. The way he looks at me, it's like if I tell him to jump inside hot water, he would do it without hesitation.

He must be at most fourteen, which makes him at the very least, three years my junior and judging from how scared he looks, he has pickpocketing talent, but little experience.

It is perhaps his lack of experience that makes him so obvious and as it turns out, I am not the only one looking.

Someone in the crowd shouts something, and through some odd crowd mentality, everyone starts chasing him like he killed someone's cat.

He is fast and so he manages to get a good distance away, but he is not nearly fast enough. There is no amount of speed in the world that could conquer the sheer number of this crowd.

It takes a single old woman with no regard for her personal safety abandoning her cane and jumping out of her shop at just the right moment to catch him and deliver him to the crowd.

* * *

No questions were asked, no answers were taken. Before I can snap my - nevermind, the whatever authority was in the crowd with four goons, each one looking angrier than the last. They all held belts in their hands and looked very hungry; it is like they all had a really bad day

I have read a lot of psychology in my time, yet I do not understand the psychology behind mob justice. However, I know I am not about to let it happen. I need a scheme and fast.

The obvious leader closes in on the boy who is now stripped shirtless, saying something I don't understand completely( I know he definitely said two hundred, he couldn't have meant he wanted to give the boy two hundred dollars, could he?) and then raises the hand that is holding the belt above his head. The anger in his eyes is just excessive and all too real, it is like the boy killed his child. I don't want to watch what I know would happen, but I can't look away and so when the belt bites the boy's flesh with a sickening crack, I see and hear it very clearly.

At that moment, while the sound of the first hit still rang in the air. A strange thing, the likes of which I have experienced only once before happens again. It is not like time slows down or anything, it is more like my brain switches from being a four kilobytes RAM computing engine to being a supercomputer. The best path lights up in front of me and I know what I must do.

Firstly, in the context of flogging, everything depends on three major factors; force output, surface area of the connecting hit and technique.

P= (F/C) ∆

Where;

P= pain output
F= force output
C= surface area
∆ = technique

I may not have visible scars thanks to papa's godly whipping skills, but I've been at the receiving end of the whip long enough to say, this man needs a hard lesson from dad. I would be glad to teach him too, I hate seeing people being incompetent at stuff they shouldn't even be doing in the first place.

First, didn't they teach in the school of illegal mob punishment that belts are an inferior waste of energy? Also, is anybody going to tell him that the surface area per unit force is too damn high? Why is he raising his belt hand unnecessarily high and wasting his energy?

Yet, I know that although his technique sucks, to a scared kid who hasn't seen better, it is plenty. I bet I won't even feel a thing.

The belt makes its way to the boy's red naked back for a second time and as It does, I traverse my way to the front of the crowd and dive at the boy, wrapping him in a bear hug as we fall together to the ground. My move is timed such that the belt still hits, but it hits me in the rump instead.

It actually hurts a bit. However, that won't be happening again. I only have to hold this position covering the boy.

The idea is simple and has three parts to it;

The first part takes advantage of the fact that it is completely impossible for the enforcers of the mob to hit me or to hit me with nearly as much conviction and consequently force as they would have hit the boy. I am innocent of the crime(hitting innocent people hurts your "street cred"), a girl (hitting girls hurts your "street cred") and an unknown foreigner.

Secondly, he has hit the boy once already and so no one can say the guilty didn't go unpunished

Thirdly, for such unskilled twits, it is way harder to the point of complete pointlessness to beat someone with a belt when they are on the ground.

Fourthly, if they think that I am letting go of this boy for any reason, they are sorely mistaken.

* * *
Against all odds, the hits start coming. But, they don't hurt at all. In this moment, the only one capable of hurting someone is me. I am, after all, Ayah the monster.

Confusion is a dangerous force and also one that can hold powerful results.

I start to laugh, it is fake at first but thinking about how fake it is makes me laugh for real. It is louder than intended but I don't mind, it would serve its purpose.