Soft

[A play on clichés]

Heart in his mouth, he pleaded, "Don't leave yet honey! Who will clean this
mess? Just give me five minutes and I shall finish my meal."

"Don't you have any manners? Don't talk with your mouth full." She retorted.

"I have to hurry or else I will be late for Rhonda's birthday party. She has
promised to bring some deliciously handsome guys from her office to the party. I am staying over. See you tomorrow. And don’t forget to clean up after your
supper"; she added with a hungry gleam in her eyes as she put on the sandals.

Still with his mouth full, he called out, "Will you bring one of your friends
home from the party, dear? But let it not be a blonde. I like the brainy ones,
remember?"

"Don't crack bad jokes. May be I shall bring one of those handsome men!" She
quipped back.

"You can have all the fun you like darling. But me, I have strictly
heterosexual taste." He persisted.

“If you keep that up, one of these days I will have you by your balls, slowly
turning over on a barbeque”; she shouted back at him. The thought brought a
smile on her crooked lips as she closed the door behind her and hurried to her
friend's place, like a bitch in heat.

Inside, he went back to his supper. He chewed hard and cursed his wife, "The
slut has once again left the dish undercooked! These urban bitches! They are
hard nuts to crack, even in pressure cooker situations!"

Settling down here in this metropolis had been her idea. "Lots of easy prey
here darling, especially for us who know the art of hunting" she had said with a wink. She had been right. With so many birds of different feather flocking
together here, the metropolis had spiced up their lives with variety, he
conceded albeit reluctantly.

Like a lion in his native Africa, he let his wife do all the hunting while he
stayed home and watched the telly whole day sipping beer. Getting up only to eat when hunger, that was as unavoidable as death and taxes, hit him in his
potbelly. ‘But tonight, the bitch has left the cleaning job to me’, he muttered
angrily as he returned to his lion's share waiting for him on the kitchen table.

Ignoring the look of stupid surprise frozen on the blonde's dead face, he
looked inside the carcass. It was cold as a witch's teat.

"Pity she had such a small brain! Not enough even for a breakfast. And the
liver we already had, at lunchtime. No soft parts left anymore! She must have
been one of those aerobic freaks. No flesh on her bones to sink one's teeth
into, either. There is more meat on a chicken's forehead than on this dumb
chick!"; fretted the cannibal who had been softened by urban life, as he plucked out shreds of uncooked heart tissue from his teeth.

***

© Rajendra Pradhan