Ladies said in the City: “The wife of the (great) ‘Aziz is seeking to seduce her slave from his (true) self: Truly hath he inspired her with violent love: we see she is evidently going astray.”

When she heard of their malicious talk, she sent for them and prepared a banquet for them: she gave each of them a knife: and she said (to Joseph), “Come out before them.” When they saw him, they did extol him, and (in their amazement) cut their hands: they said, “Allah preserve us! No mortal is this! This is none other than a noble angel!”

—Quran, excerpt from Surah 12: Yusuf (translation by Yusuf Ali)

The idol of my life—divine!

All radiant, clothed in mystery

And loving me as I adore,

As none dared ever love before,

Shall be—nay, is—even now, is mine!

—Jami, Yusuf and Zulaikha (translation by Charles F. Horne)

This is the most important story of my life. You might find it too honest, too blunt, but I cannot tell it any other way, and if you desire it to have a moral, let it be this—if there is anything worth striving for, it is to love madly, and be madly loved.

***************

Jayachandran/Mint

He kneeled next to me, and I moved my hands away. Don’t touch them, I said. You’ll die.

Eleven stars, the sun and moon have prostrated before me, he said. I will not die.

Pulling a dagger from the satchel strapped across his chest, he cut the ropes that bound me. He kissed my left palm, then my right.

His tongue slid past my wrist, down my arm, along the curve of my neck. He was almost to my navel when I awoke, my entire body pulsing with pleasure, my hips thrusting at air.

No one had ever told me about sex, but my body knew what to do. Our bodies are born knowing. It is our minds that take time to decide.

***************

When I got married, I prayed my husband would be like the man from my childhood dream. But my husband had the face of a crow, the body of a goat, and fucked like a dog. He’d order me to cover the idol with my scarf, force me on all fours, winding my long, thick hair around his fist and yanking at it. He would not look at me, or say my name, or offer a tender gesture.

One day, I cut off all of my hair. When he saw what I’d done he said, “I like your new look. Now I’ll complete it,” and added two bruised lids and a swollen lip. He bought a slave, a black-skinned Nubian, and fucked her instead. When she got pregnant, he told me to take care of it.

I told her she could run away. I didn’t have much money, but I’d give her what I had.

“Please,” she said. “Get me the abortion first.”

And so we went, the pregnant Nubian slave, the wife with the terrorized eyes. The abortionist saw us and said, “This man’s a real prize.” I watched as she poured warm oil into the slave girl’s vagina, and two days later, I watched the slave girl die.

My husband spat in my hair. “You’re ugly,” he said. “And stupid. I told you to take care of it, and you got her killed.”

Later, I lay next to him, weeping without tears. I beseeched the gods. Please please can you not give me just one tiny morsel of joy.

***************

My husband went to the slave dealer to purchase another. When he returned, he said, “Look what’s outside.”

“Why don’t you bring her in?” I asked.

“It isn’t a her,” he replied.

I went to the small room built off of the stables. A young man was leaning against the sunlit brick wall. Brown hair, golden skin, green eyes. My heart, turned to flame. My husband came up next to me, and I prayed he could not feel how I burned.

“His name is Yusuf,” he told me. “The dealer gave him to me for a good price. He said he couldn’t find a man who would want such a handsome slave around his wife. But I told him I don’t have to worry about my wife. What real man would want to fuck a woman who looks like a boy?”

I lowered my head, too embarrassed to meet Yusuf’s gaze.

“He’s not allowed in the house,” my husband continued. “I thought I’d make him a shepherd.”

“But we have no sheep,” I said.

“I’ll buy him some sheep. We’ll put some bells around their necks. Wouldn’t that be nice?” He slapped my ass and laughing, sent me back inside.

When I got to the kitchen I had to hold onto the table to keep from falling. A dream turned into beautiful flesh, given a name, and made a shepherd. Mine. Imagine sharing a space with such a long awaited lover and such a terrible animal of a man. Imagine such geometry, such extremes of dark and light. Imagine being able to stand.

***************

And imagine how I yearned for the sound of those bells, for it meant Yusuf had returned. From the kitchen window, I caught glimpses of him at the water tank, washing the scent of pasture from his skin. Let this be enough, I thought. His damp shoulder. The small of his back.A tapered stretch of calf. But it was not enough. It could not be enough. You’ll understand this, one day, when you have loved as I.

And so one afternoon, I filled a cup with wine and brought it out to him. He turned from the tank, sensing me. My hand trembled. I took a sip of wine.

“I used to have long hair,” I said. “I didn’t used to look like this.”

“And now you have short hair, and I can see all of your beautiful neck, all of the time,” he said, and I remembered what it was to smile.

He took me in his arms, every part of me, bruised, wounded, tortured, divine and kissed me, softly, gently.

A sheep bleated. I pulled away.

“Yusuf,” I said. “If he finds out…what should we do?”

“We shouldn’t harm him,” he said. “That would be the darkest path. We have to find another.”

From the house, a noise. “I better go,” I said.

***************

The next afternoon, the neighbors’ wives arrived, one short, one slender, one tall, one fat. Four pairs of glistening eyes.

“Yes?” I said.

“Is it true?” the tall one said. “Is your slave really so beautiful?”

“Can we see him?” said the short.

“He’s out with the sheep,” I said, but the slender one was already inside.

“We’ll wait,” she said.

“Do you have anything to eat?” asked the fat.

Entering the kitchen, they saw the vegetables piled high. “We’ll help,” offered the slender, handing out knives. They went to work, exchanging rumors as they peeled and diced, and I began to fear what they might say about Yusuf.

“You should leave,” I said.

“But why?” the tall one replied.

And then, the bells’ distant chime.

“The sheep!” the fat one cried.

Yusuf looked to the window expecting me and found four mouths instead, parted and gasping, their hot breath creeping from side to side. I had never seen him so beautiful, framed by the sycamore’s cascading figs, illuminated by the afternoon’s soft light. A sheep nudged his hip. There was a smear of dirt on his cheek, beads of sweat on his jaw’s strong line.

The fat one’s gasp turned into a sigh. Then the short one yelped, “My thumb!” and they realized what they’d done.

Beware, beware the neighbor’s wives, who slice their own hands with knives.

Blood spilling from thumbs. Blood on potatoes, onions, carrots, on the floor and table. The power of lust, personified. The power of Yusuf, Yusuf who was mine.

***************

I used every single vegetable in the stew that night, and every scrap of blood. My husband usually pecked at his food, but today he ate like he fucked, belching between rounds. As he slept that night, his stomach groaned. When he woke up, he was too ill to move.

He asked for water. I thought of denying him, but couldn’t. I gave him sips, but only a few, and brought him a bowl to piss in. This was the limit of my grace, and I left him alone and went to Yusuf’s room.

In the corner was an altar to the goddess of protection the slave girl had left behind. There was a bed of hay, a blanket of soft wool draped over it. On the floor was Yusuf’s scarf. I held it to my nose. It smelled of earth, of warmth, of danger. Of life.

The sound of bells. Sheep running down the hill. Yusuf, flanked by sky. He saw me and he knew. This was it. There would be no other time.

“Where is he?” Yusuf asked.

“Upstairs. He cannot move.”

“Have you done something?”

“Not I.”

“Come.” He gave me his hand. We walked to the tank, where I poured water down his arms, his ass, his spine. I entwined my fingers in the curls at his stomach’s end, cupped his swollen flesh, licked the streams of water from his chest.

He lifted me up and carried me to his room. I picked up his scarf from the floor.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Covering the idol.”

“Let your idol see,” he said. “What better offering is there than this?”

I let the scarf go, turned around. He pulled up my dress, got on his knees, and breathed in the heat between my thighs.

***************

Perhaps I have made you shy, though there is no shame in it. I will not tell you more of our afternoon together, though there is so much I still remember. The ways in which he touched me. The things he said. All of his different tastes. The fire in his eyes.

It is what I have spent my life remembering. It is how I made it through. It is how I made it to you.

***************

He kissed the palms of my hands.

“Do you believe in dreams?” I asked.

“I know all about dreams,” he said. His tongue slid past my wrist, down my arm, along the curve of my neck.

“Did you know, then,” I said, “that this was mine?”

***************

At first, neither of us noticed when my husband’s shadow pierced the light. When I saw how calmly he observed us, perched in the doorway, I despaired, for the quietest rage can be the most unkind. Wrapping the blanket around me, Yusuf rose to face him.

“I always thought she was a whore,” my husband said. “And now I’ve proven it.”

“We’ll leave quietly,” Yusuf told him. “Let’s have no trouble.”

“You’re the one who’s in trouble,” he replied. “The police are already on their way.”

“Please,” I begged him. “You can easily find another wife.”

“We can end this peacefully,” Yusuf said.

“I own you both,” my husband said. “I decide how you end. I decide whether you live or die.”

The sound of barking. Footsteps. Four policemen, short, slender, tall, fat, wielding batons instead of knives. A dog snapping at Yusuf’s naked side.

“My slave tried to take my wife’s honor,” my husband cried. “And then he attacked me.”

“He lies,” Yusuf said. Four batons aimed at his head. Four pairs of incensed eyes.

They bound his hands with rope. He watched me, our last words exchanged over silence.

Be strong. One day, the universe will bow to us, for we are God’s purest light.

I’ll try.

The police led him away, taking Yusuf to his prison, and leaving me in mine.

***************

His mouth savoring my left breast, then my right, his hand opening up my legs, his fingers stroking pleasure’s every ridge, every rise. Me, arching underneath him until I burst, and, bursting, became whole again.

“What were you,” he asked, “before this?”

“I was dead,” I said. “And now I’m alive.”

He kissed my neck, my hair.

“What were you,” I asked, “before you were a shepherd?”

“I was naked in a well,” he whispered. “Dreaming of you.”

Sheba Karim writes literary and young adult fiction. She is currently working on a historical fiction novel set in 13th century Delhi.

Excerpted from Venus Flytrap: The Zubaan Anthology of Women’s Erotica, edited by Rosalyn D’Mello; Zubaan, 280 pages, Rs 395. Venus Flytrap will be published next month.

Write to lounge@livemint.com